Columbus Catholic High School is holding its 12th Annual Cutting for a Cause Hair Donation Event on Wednesday, May 6th from 1:30pm-3pm at the Columbus Catholic High School.
I spoke with Mandy Volkman, the Columbus Catholic High School English Teacher, and she discussed the event in more detail.
Once again, the 12th Annual Cutting for a Cause Hair Donation Event is being held on Wednesday, May 6th from 1:30pm-3pm at the Columbus Catholic High School. However, they would like to have all donors signed up by next Thursday, April 2nd.
If you’d like to learn more or sign up to donate, you can go to Columbus Catholic’s website: https://www.columbuscatholicschools.org/parent-resources/cutting-for-a-cause.cfm.
(AI assisted transcription via Otter.ai)
Mandy: “Our Annual Cutting for a Cause Event will be occurring this year on Wednesday, May 6. We will be starting at 1:30pm in the Columbus Catholic High School cafeteria with our donors and volunteer stylists.”
“We have a number of local stylists who come in and help out by measuring the hair, rubber banding it into ponytails and braids ahead of time, and then the actual event usually takes place around somewhere between 2:15pm and 2:30pm in our Columbus Catholic high school gym in front of all of our student body, where the donors have their ponytails or braids actually cut off in front of everyone.”
“And then after that, our volunteer stylists are very generous, and they have appointments afterwards scheduled at their actual salons where they will even out the hair. Kind of style the hair a little bit better. Obviously, when you just chop the ponytails off, your hair ends up a little uneven.”
Riley: “Where is the hair donated?”
Mandy: “So initially, when this all first started, we started off with Pantene Beautiful Lengths. I know that Locks of Love is another organization that runs it, but they expect a little bit longer hair donation, whereas Pantene Beautiful Lengths used to only require eight inches and that’s actually a really good number for a lot of our donors.”
“And now, boy, for quite some time now, I couldn’t even tell you how many years, we actually send to Children with Hair Loss and it’s in Michigan and they provide free wigs for children nationwide, anyone who has a medical issue that involves losing their hair. So yeah, we’ve been shipping to them for quite some time.”
Riley: “If there are individuals out there who are interested in being a donor, how can they get signed up to do that?”
Mandy: “So, if you go to columbuscatholicschools.org and you go on our website, there is actually a form that you can complete that will then notify me with your contact info about whether you are interested in donating.”
“So, columbuscatholicschools.org and then, if you go to the tab that says ‘news and events’ and then the second option on the drop down is ‘Cutting for a Cause Hair Donation Event.’ And if you click on that, it’s got all the information and it has a sign up, a registration for Cutting for a Cause that you can complete.”
“And then it sends me a copy, so that I can communicate directly with anyone interested in donating. So, that is the easiest way to do it. If anyone were to have any questions, they could call the high school and ask for Mandy Volkman and I can respond to answer any questions.”
Riley: “And now you are hoping to have donors registered by April 2, I believe you said? Is that correct?”
Mandy: “Correct. Our goal is April 2, because our goal is to provide a free t-shirt for every donor and every volunteer stylist that advertises our event each year, obviously and then, kind of brings attention, but also just kind of a recognition that they participated in the event.”
“In order to order the shirts in a timely fashion, I need to have sign ups done by then. Little known fact, I still take donors a little bit afterwards, but April 2 is kind of our cut off this year to make sure that we can provide a shirt for them.”
Riley: “Anything else you’d like to add?”
Mandy: “So, first off, the Cutting for a Cause Event started to honor Miss Barb Billings, who was our principal, who passed away from ovarian cancer. She passed away on May 4th of 2011. She was a dear friend of mine. She was our principal. She was my mentor and she had been battling ovarian cancer for about a year and a half to two years and she did lose her hair.”
“And I had been donating my hair prior to that. I donate relatively regularly and I have two daughters who also started donating pretty much with their first haircuts as children. And I had just donated that spring. I told her, you know, ‘doing this for you.’ And she passed.”
“And so we had kind of been talking about it. I’m a high school teacher at Columbus, and I’ve been talking about how I had done it. And I had several students who said, ‘you know, I’d do that too.’ And since I had just donated, it took a little while before I was, you know, had to let my hair grow out, but I started organizing it, and we decided to do it as close to the anniversary of losing Miss B as possible, kind of in memory of her.”
“So, because we’re high school, we pick a Wednesday because there are no sports on Wednesday nights. There’s no actual competitions and that way I don’t have students who are gone for games and so forth. So, we do it the first Wednesday of every May now, and yeah, it’s just been a really amazing turnout over the years.”
“We have students, we have staff members, we have family members, we have community members who come in to do this. Actually, almost every year, I’ve had one male almost every year we’ve got a couple males who have donated over, you know, consistently over the years as well.”
“But it’s just been a really wonderful way to tremember Barb. By this point, none of the students remember Barb. They were, you know, it’s been four…, oh my gosh, it’s been 15 years. Holy cow. So, many of the students do not even know who who she is, but we keep, those of us who worked with her, we keep her memory alive.”
“We stay in touch with the family. So, that’s just been something that’s kind of been cathartic for me, because she was a good, dear friend. And over the over the years, I’ve been keeping a tally. I didn’t do as good of a job the first year because I didn’t realize that it was going to be turning into quite this event.”
“We are currently, as of last year, we had 360 donors that we had accumulated over the time of the event. So, 360 people have donated their hair. Some of those people, it was multiple times. I think I’ve donated, probably, I’ve donated 11 times in my life.”
“So, I think I was five or six of those in that 360. We’ve had a total of 1,435 ponytails donated, and 3,378 inches have been donated over the entire time. And already this year, I’ve already had nine people drop their ponytails off for me ahead of time.”
“We do have a number of people who kind of, they can’t always make the event itself, so they donate throughout the year and bring me their hair. So, yeah, we’ve already had nine donors this year, and I’ve got another, I want to say six or seven signed up already, but I’m starting to get some emails over spring break here that it looks like I’ll have a number.”
But I do have a little, a little dream of mine, it would be really cool if we hit 400 donors this year. That would mean 40 people total. And we’ve already got, as I said, we’re at about 15 right now, so that’d be really cool.”
“You know, might not make that, but that’s okay. There’s always next year. And I think our highest year ever, we’ve hit 41 donors, two years. And then, of course, during Covid we had like, maybe around 20 each, twice, during Covid, just because we couldn’t do it in person. Steadily climbing after Covid again. So, that’s been good to see.”
Comments