semiotic_pirate (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
semiotic_pirate) wrote2007-09-06 12:29 pm
semiotic_pirate) wrote2007-09-06 12:29 pm
Entry tags:
Think before you cut!
Anything so easy as chopping off your hair for charity has to be, like anything that is overly easy to accomplish, not really making the impact you think it is. Another feel-good for the masses bit of misdirection. I am not saying that these companies don't do any good in the world. What I am saying is that people are deluding themselves by thinking that their sheared melons are actually getting used for what they think they are getting used for when they send in their "donation."
If the guidelines are so strict, they should be well-known. Hell, would people still send in their hair if they knew it was being sold off? In a way, yes. They are still making a donation, they are sending something of value in, that can itself be sold so that these charities can have funds for whatever it is that they do. One person's trash (hair clippings) are another person's treasure. Of course, cash would be more convenient... But many of the people who send in their hair are thinking somewhat altruistically, and it sure is nice to be able to brag and pat themselves on the back for putting themselves through the shearing process to help out the poor little wimmins and chillens, the victims of disease. Not that there is anything wrong with that. Many social and economic programs are in place to "reward" people for "doing the right thing" in order for society as a whole to benefit.
Is this another case of needing more "transparency?" Or just another example of the media kicking at a figurative ant-hill to get a reaction from the populace?
Hair is vanity. *shrug* Hair is also a vast money-making industry behemoth. Which is why Pantene got itself on the evolving/revolving hair-donation wagon.
Reminds of of a movie I watched recently (and loved) called Death to Smoochy. "Think about the poor children!"
New York Times
September 6, 2007
Lather, Rinse, Donate
By ELIZABETH HAYT
A STREAM of girls in green T-shirts bustled into the gym at Seton High School in Cincinnati last May, scrambled into folding chairs and bowed their heads. As more than 400 spectators counted down, volunteers pulled the girls’ locks taut into ponytails and, on cue, sheared off eight inches, creating blond, brunette and raven pompoms that many girls shook and twirled.
The newly shorn — more than 200 students, siblings and friends — had been preparing for this cut-a-thon for months, growing their hair for Pantene Beautiful Lengths, a charitable program that makes wigs for women facing cancer treatment. Jen Sherman, 16, a junior, participated because her mother and her aunt had died of cancer.
“I did it for them, as a way to remember them,” said Jen, whose sister, Megan, cut off her light-colored ponytail. “It felt really special.”
Forget collecting pennies for Unicef or washing cars to raise money for hospitals. One of the most popular ways young people are contributing to charity these days — everyone from Girl Scouts to bar mitzvah boys — is growing their hair long and donating it for wigs for children and women with serious diseases.
It’s not just teenagers. Biker clubs have organized cut-a-thons. Professional athletes have held public shearings. The NBC news anchor Ann Curry lopped off the actress Diane Lane’s mane on the “Today” show last year.
But although charities have been highly effective at stirring the passions of donors, they have been less successful at finding a use for the mountains of hair sent to them as a result. As much as 80 percent of the hair donated to Locks of Love, the best known of the charities, is unusable for its wigs, the group says. Many people are unaware of the hair donation guidelines and send in hair that is gray, wet or moldy, too short, or too processed, some of which is immediately thrown away. Even hair that survives the winnowing may not go to the gravely ill, but may be sold to help pay for charities’ organizational costs.
At the headquarters of Locks of Love in Lake Worth, Fla., the hair deluge — up to 2,000 individual donations a week — can be daunting for the small staff of six employees and 10 to 15 volunteers.
“We created this monster because people get so much from it,” said Madonna Coffman, the president of Locks of Love. “They get the attention. They get a warm and fuzzy feeling. They feel they’re going to help a child.”
Locks of Love sends the best of the hair it receives to a wig manufacturer, Taylormade Hair Replacement in Millbrae, Calif., which weeds through the selection still further, rejecting up to half.
“We hate throwing it away but ultimately we have to clear the place out,” said Greg Taylor, the president and owner of Taylormade. “There is a disparity between the hundreds and hundreds of braids and ponytails and the number of hairpieces we’ve produced.”
Mr. Taylor sells the wigs wholesale to Locks of Love for less than $1,000. Since the charity began in December 1997, it has provided about 2,000 wigs to recipients for free or a reduced price. The group makes clear in its literature and on its Web site that most of the wig recipients are not children with cancer. Rather, they are children who suffer from alopecia areata, an autoimmune disorder that destroys follicles and results in hair loss. About 2 percent of the population, including half a million children, are estimated to have alopecia.
But many alopecia sufferers seem unaware that they are the group’s main priority; only about 10 apply for a wig each week, Ms. Coffman said. Many donors, too, seem ignorant or only partly aware of the group’s focus. Maggie Varney, a hairdresser and owner of a salon in St. Clair Shores, Mich., said she was shocked to learn that hair she collected from her clients and sent to Locks of Love was not used for wigs for children with cancer. In reaction, she formed her own nonprofit, Wigs 4 Kids, in 2003, which receives a few dozen donations of hair a month that are made into wigs that go predominantly to children with cancer.
Two other groups also serve people with cancer. Pantene Beautiful Lengths, started in June last year, has the resources of Pantene, the $3 billion global hair product division of Procter & Gamble, including teams of publicists who stage cutting fests. Already the program has received 18,000 ponytails — 8,000 more than originally projected — and distributed 2,000 wigs to women with cancer, said Seth Klugherz, the North American Pantene brand manager.
Wigs for Kids, the oldest hair donation charity, was started more than 25 years ago by Jeffrey Paul, a designer and retailer of hairpieces. It receives 600 to 800 donations a month, he said, for wigs that usually go to children with cancer, but also to those with other medical conditions.
The lesser-known charities receive less unusable hair than Locks of Love, which has become almost synonymous with the cause and attracts mass donations.
R. W. McQuarters, a cornerback for the New York Giants who donated his dreadlocks to Locks of Love in March, said he wishes he had known that they are unacceptable for wigmaking and probably ended up in the trash. “I’d rather them send back the hair,” he said. “I could have sold them on eBay and then taken the cash and given it to charity.”
In fact, all three of the children’s charities sell excess hair — in particular, the short and the gray — to commercial wig makers to defray costs. According to its tax returns, Locks of Love made $1.9 million from hair sales from 2001 to 2006, and took in another $3.4 million in donations. Besides paying for wigs, the money goes for overhead and other costs, including grants for alopecia research.
The donations keep rolling in, perhaps because cutting off one’s hair for charity is an altruistic deed that doesn’t require a financial contribution, which may be why it appeals so much to children. It is also an intimate act that suggests an instant result, said Bennett Weiner, the chief operating officer of the Better Business Bureau’s Wise Giving Alliance, a national monitor of charities. “People like the feeling that their gift will be helping now,” Mr. Weiner said.
Most of those who give are adolescent girls, like Eliza Stuber of Albany, Calif. At her bat mitzvah ceremony in July last year, she announced her intention to donate her brown tresses to Locks of Love. Later that day, she showed up at her party with a new short cut, her pledge fulfilled.
Lately boys and even men have gotten into the act, like Brennan Blomgren, 17, from St. Paul, Minn., who blogged about wanting to donate his hair and then gave a foot of his blond mop to Pantene Beautiful Lengths. He also held a public cutting event for the charity in December at the Mall of America.
Other donors include Mikey Teutul, a biker known from the television show “American Chopper,” who has twice chopped off his hair for Locks of Love. Prisoners at the Racine Correctional Institute in Sturtevant, Wis., will “grow their hair during their entire incarceration and cut it before they’re released,” said Uv Kamm, the prison’s recreational leader.
The idea that donated hair can benefit a gravely ill woman or child is so pervasive that some long-haired people even report being harassed for not chopping off their locks. Heidi Woeller, 47, an administrative assistant at a hardware company in DeKalb, Ill., whose hair reaches the back of her calves when worn loose, recalled that at an antiques fair last summer two women asked if she intended to donate. When she said no, they berated her, insisting she set an example. “They’re basically asking, ‘What are your charitable intentions this year?’ ” Ms. Woeller said.
Perhaps they would be less adamant if they could visit Ms. Coffman in the Locks of Love office in Florida. Every day the hanks of hair arrive, filling some 10 postal bins, representing the best intentions of donors, but so much of it destined for the trash.
“A check would be easier for me,” Ms. Coffman said. “But would the donors get out of it what they do? No.”
If the guidelines are so strict, they should be well-known. Hell, would people still send in their hair if they knew it was being sold off? In a way, yes. They are still making a donation, they are sending something of value in, that can itself be sold so that these charities can have funds for whatever it is that they do. One person's trash (hair clippings) are another person's treasure. Of course, cash would be more convenient... But many of the people who send in their hair are thinking somewhat altruistically, and it sure is nice to be able to brag and pat themselves on the back for putting themselves through the shearing process to help out the poor little wimmins and chillens, the victims of disease. Not that there is anything wrong with that. Many social and economic programs are in place to "reward" people for "doing the right thing" in order for society as a whole to benefit.
Is this another case of needing more "transparency?" Or just another example of the media kicking at a figurative ant-hill to get a reaction from the populace?
Hair is vanity. *shrug* Hair is also a vast money-making industry behemoth. Which is why Pantene got itself on the evolving/revolving hair-donation wagon.
Reminds of of a movie I watched recently (and loved) called Death to Smoochy. "Think about the poor children!"
New York Times
September 6, 2007
Lather, Rinse, Donate
By ELIZABETH HAYT
A STREAM of girls in green T-shirts bustled into the gym at Seton High School in Cincinnati last May, scrambled into folding chairs and bowed their heads. As more than 400 spectators counted down, volunteers pulled the girls’ locks taut into ponytails and, on cue, sheared off eight inches, creating blond, brunette and raven pompoms that many girls shook and twirled.
The newly shorn — more than 200 students, siblings and friends — had been preparing for this cut-a-thon for months, growing their hair for Pantene Beautiful Lengths, a charitable program that makes wigs for women facing cancer treatment. Jen Sherman, 16, a junior, participated because her mother and her aunt had died of cancer.
“I did it for them, as a way to remember them,” said Jen, whose sister, Megan, cut off her light-colored ponytail. “It felt really special.”
Forget collecting pennies for Unicef or washing cars to raise money for hospitals. One of the most popular ways young people are contributing to charity these days — everyone from Girl Scouts to bar mitzvah boys — is growing their hair long and donating it for wigs for children and women with serious diseases.
It’s not just teenagers. Biker clubs have organized cut-a-thons. Professional athletes have held public shearings. The NBC news anchor Ann Curry lopped off the actress Diane Lane’s mane on the “Today” show last year.
But although charities have been highly effective at stirring the passions of donors, they have been less successful at finding a use for the mountains of hair sent to them as a result. As much as 80 percent of the hair donated to Locks of Love, the best known of the charities, is unusable for its wigs, the group says. Many people are unaware of the hair donation guidelines and send in hair that is gray, wet or moldy, too short, or too processed, some of which is immediately thrown away. Even hair that survives the winnowing may not go to the gravely ill, but may be sold to help pay for charities’ organizational costs.
At the headquarters of Locks of Love in Lake Worth, Fla., the hair deluge — up to 2,000 individual donations a week — can be daunting for the small staff of six employees and 10 to 15 volunteers.
“We created this monster because people get so much from it,” said Madonna Coffman, the president of Locks of Love. “They get the attention. They get a warm and fuzzy feeling. They feel they’re going to help a child.”
Locks of Love sends the best of the hair it receives to a wig manufacturer, Taylormade Hair Replacement in Millbrae, Calif., which weeds through the selection still further, rejecting up to half.
“We hate throwing it away but ultimately we have to clear the place out,” said Greg Taylor, the president and owner of Taylormade. “There is a disparity between the hundreds and hundreds of braids and ponytails and the number of hairpieces we’ve produced.”
Mr. Taylor sells the wigs wholesale to Locks of Love for less than $1,000. Since the charity began in December 1997, it has provided about 2,000 wigs to recipients for free or a reduced price. The group makes clear in its literature and on its Web site that most of the wig recipients are not children with cancer. Rather, they are children who suffer from alopecia areata, an autoimmune disorder that destroys follicles and results in hair loss. About 2 percent of the population, including half a million children, are estimated to have alopecia.
But many alopecia sufferers seem unaware that they are the group’s main priority; only about 10 apply for a wig each week, Ms. Coffman said. Many donors, too, seem ignorant or only partly aware of the group’s focus. Maggie Varney, a hairdresser and owner of a salon in St. Clair Shores, Mich., said she was shocked to learn that hair she collected from her clients and sent to Locks of Love was not used for wigs for children with cancer. In reaction, she formed her own nonprofit, Wigs 4 Kids, in 2003, which receives a few dozen donations of hair a month that are made into wigs that go predominantly to children with cancer.
Two other groups also serve people with cancer. Pantene Beautiful Lengths, started in June last year, has the resources of Pantene, the $3 billion global hair product division of Procter & Gamble, including teams of publicists who stage cutting fests. Already the program has received 18,000 ponytails — 8,000 more than originally projected — and distributed 2,000 wigs to women with cancer, said Seth Klugherz, the North American Pantene brand manager.
Wigs for Kids, the oldest hair donation charity, was started more than 25 years ago by Jeffrey Paul, a designer and retailer of hairpieces. It receives 600 to 800 donations a month, he said, for wigs that usually go to children with cancer, but also to those with other medical conditions.
The lesser-known charities receive less unusable hair than Locks of Love, which has become almost synonymous with the cause and attracts mass donations.
R. W. McQuarters, a cornerback for the New York Giants who donated his dreadlocks to Locks of Love in March, said he wishes he had known that they are unacceptable for wigmaking and probably ended up in the trash. “I’d rather them send back the hair,” he said. “I could have sold them on eBay and then taken the cash and given it to charity.”
In fact, all three of the children’s charities sell excess hair — in particular, the short and the gray — to commercial wig makers to defray costs. According to its tax returns, Locks of Love made $1.9 million from hair sales from 2001 to 2006, and took in another $3.4 million in donations. Besides paying for wigs, the money goes for overhead and other costs, including grants for alopecia research.
The donations keep rolling in, perhaps because cutting off one’s hair for charity is an altruistic deed that doesn’t require a financial contribution, which may be why it appeals so much to children. It is also an intimate act that suggests an instant result, said Bennett Weiner, the chief operating officer of the Better Business Bureau’s Wise Giving Alliance, a national monitor of charities. “People like the feeling that their gift will be helping now,” Mr. Weiner said.
Most of those who give are adolescent girls, like Eliza Stuber of Albany, Calif. At her bat mitzvah ceremony in July last year, she announced her intention to donate her brown tresses to Locks of Love. Later that day, she showed up at her party with a new short cut, her pledge fulfilled.
Lately boys and even men have gotten into the act, like Brennan Blomgren, 17, from St. Paul, Minn., who blogged about wanting to donate his hair and then gave a foot of his blond mop to Pantene Beautiful Lengths. He also held a public cutting event for the charity in December at the Mall of America.
Other donors include Mikey Teutul, a biker known from the television show “American Chopper,” who has twice chopped off his hair for Locks of Love. Prisoners at the Racine Correctional Institute in Sturtevant, Wis., will “grow their hair during their entire incarceration and cut it before they’re released,” said Uv Kamm, the prison’s recreational leader.
The idea that donated hair can benefit a gravely ill woman or child is so pervasive that some long-haired people even report being harassed for not chopping off their locks. Heidi Woeller, 47, an administrative assistant at a hardware company in DeKalb, Ill., whose hair reaches the back of her calves when worn loose, recalled that at an antiques fair last summer two women asked if she intended to donate. When she said no, they berated her, insisting she set an example. “They’re basically asking, ‘What are your charitable intentions this year?’ ” Ms. Woeller said.
Perhaps they would be less adamant if they could visit Ms. Coffman in the Locks of Love office in Florida. Every day the hanks of hair arrive, filling some 10 postal bins, representing the best intentions of donors, but so much of it destined for the trash.
“A check would be easier for me,” Ms. Coffman said. “But would the donors get out of it what they do? No.”