Meet One Inspirational Chick Shaving Her Lovely Locks for a Cause

Girls take a lot of pride in (and spent a lot of money on) their hair. Coloring, highlights, blowouts, Keratin treatments, extensions, fancy products, expensive straighteners, clip-on bangs (ahem, Kim K.), the list goes on and on. Many girls claim hair to be their best features and what makes them feel pretty and feminine when they’re sans makeup and wearing zit cream and sweats. And I’m no exception to the rule–hello, I recently had a panic attack because I thought my shampoo was making my locks limp (#firstworldproblems). So imagine someone taking a razor to your head and saying sayonara to the mane you work so hard to maintain. The HORROR! I mean…we could hardly watch when Anne Hathaway got chopped in Les Mis!

NOW imagine a girl with long, gorgeous tresses doing that…voluntarily. That’s right, my new (Internet) friend and inspiration Kathleen Ritzel Lloyd (you can call her Katie) is going under the knife, er, razor in support of St. Baldrick’s Foundation, which funds research and treatment for the painfully sad problem of childhood cancer. Here’s Katie (and her hair):
I mean…wow.

In case you’re not familiar with St. Baldrick’s: “It began as a head-shaving event and continues to be the signature event of the Foundation. ‘Shavees’ ask friends and family to make donations ‘on their head’ and in return, they attend one of thousands of volunteer-organized events around the world where they have their heads shaved in solidarity with kids fighting cancer.”

So what prompted this long-haired lovely to lose it all for the cause? Honestly, I think she says it best (of course, I had to interject my commentary in italics).

From Katie:
So here is the long and short of it. (Nice pun, girl). I have been working with this charity for seven years as a barber (read: she does the shaving). This year will be my eighth as a barber and first as a shavee and team captain. The night of the event is so electric, and everyone is donating and shaming men into shaving that I have always wanted to be a part of it… but it would be stupid to shave and not have funds behind it (good point). 

This year, my hometown was ravaged by Hurricane Sandy. In Atlanta, I sat and watched on TV while my friends and family evacuated and waited. I felt helpless, and for the first time, realized that life can change in an instant. I felt like I needed to help and didn’t know how. Then, I read about a little boy named Danny. Danny is from the town next door to where I grew up. (Click here to read about Danny, who coincidentally resides close to where I grew up, too). That’s when it started to come together for me. I thought about it, but was still vain and loved my hair too much (we love your hair, too). At the same time, a new trend started on facebook. People posting pictures of sick children with “CLICK LIKE IF YOU WISH CANCER DIDN’T EXIST.” This made me think, NO! Don’t click like! Get off Facebook! Log on to stjude.org and donate, or just get off your computer, donate your time, run a 5k, DO something. (PREACH!) Clicking like will not do anything! The more I researched St. Baldrick’s, the more I realized how sick and horrible it is to post a picture of a child suffering with cancer. Just to see how many likes you can get? (AMEN! DISLIKE.) A lot of the children on St. Baldrick’s page have “Angel” next to their names because they did not survive.

Tags: atlanta, hair, holiday, inspirational

Category: Hair, Happy Hour