Hair club for kids

Donors keep cancer patients looking good

By KAT BERGERON
kbergeron@sunherald.com

When Courtney Clark met Tanae Ladner for the first time, Tanae was wearing Courtney's hair. They smiled at each other in that secret language of kids.

The explanation is simple.

Twelve-year-old Tanae is undergoing chemotherapy for the sixth time and has lost most of her own hair. Seven-year-old Courtney was the first to donate to the Pink Heart Fund's Pony Tail Club and her foot-long hair was used in a wig for Tanae, who lives in Pass Christian.

"My friends kept asking me why I cut my hair and I told them, 'I gave it to a kid with cancer,'

" said shorter-haired Courtney, a Long Beach second-grader.

The cutting came in May and since then the club has received a dozen pony tails, a minimum of 6 inches each. Hair donations are definitely a case of the haves helping the have-nots.

"Losing your hair is more traumatic than most people think, especially for a child," said JoAn Niceley, founder of the Pink Heart Fund created just after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 to help storm-beleaguered cancer patients of all ages with breast prosthesis and wigs.

"We don't have to do the cutting. We're hoping other hair stylists will send us hair."

The Pony Tail Club mission: To return a good self-image to children with hair loss by providing wigs for the financially disadvantaged. Even those with insurance will get help with complicated filing procedures.

The most recent donor to the club is Delaney Moran of Biloxi. The souvenir of her doing the good deed is a funny-faced pink squeeze ball from which springs a few strands of her long hair and her new short hair for comparison. After the cutting, Delaney walked around JoAn Niceley's Hair Studio in Long Beach, holding the pink ball like a trophy.

Tanae's own sister, Tareka, forfeited 12 inches of hair for the cancer cause, giving hope to club founders that the donation idea will expand like a big hair day.

The Pony Tail Club and its umbrella Pink Heart Funds are grassroots Mississippi Coast efforts by Niceley, a hair stylist and a cancer survivor who is joined by others touched by the disease.

Niceley said she hopes the hair club will make it easier for children to get natural hair wigs in six to 10 days, maybe even with hair donated by friends and family. If in a hurry, a synthetic wig can be ordered overnight and Niceley is trained to fit and alter wigs. As for the charge, that will depend on insurance and the family's ability to pay.

Niceley doesn't see this local effort as competition for successful national programs. One of the best-known, Locks of Love, is also geared for children and spokeswoman Lauren Kukkamaa said LOL offers natural hair prothesis for a permanent hair loss from burns or a condition called alopecia areata, and another program for synthetic wigs for those undergoing cancer treatment and whose hair will grow back.

Niceley can't predict how big or how far the Pony Tail Club will stretch, but she believes it to be vital to her personal mission to help cancer patients feel good about themselves. She knows firsthand how it helps through the tough days of debilitating treatments.

Anyone who meets Niceley recognizes her passion to help and comfort others, but her time and energy are not bottomless. That's why her friendship with Michelle Hirata is a meeting of the minds.

After watching her mom and eight other family members die from cancer, the Ocean Springs textile artist designed a hat so soft it doesn't irritate the tender heads of chemotherapy patients. Each is custom-made by crochet and knitting techniques and either sold or donated through Hirata's company, Fat Thumbs Originals.

Not surprisingly, Hirata became vice president of the Pink Heart Fund and jumped feet first into promoting PHF fundraisers. Those include the cookbook "Appetite for Living: Pink Ribbon Recipes" and a May "Hearts with Hope" event that brought in $6,000 and inspired 18 men and women to cut their hair.

A third woman, Rochelle Harper, who lost a grandmother to cancer, enters the Pink Heart picture, lending her talents as a Coast music mainstay. Inspired by a poem Hirata wrote about her mother's death, she wrote and recorded "The Butterfly Song" and is designating proceeds to the Pink Heart Funds.

Harper also wrote a song about the new Pony Tail Club, suggesting folks "Giddy up on over to the Pony Tail Club. Click your heels and clip your tails."

WEB EXTRA

About the club

What: Pony Tail Club of the Pink Heart Funds. Created for monetary and hair donations to provide wigs for children undergoing cancer treatment.

About hair donations: Should be all one length, at least 6 inches long and unbleached. Hairstylists should gather donated hair in tight pony tail before cutting and cut above the tie. Place dry hair in zip lock bag. Hair cannot be swept up from floor.

About Pink Heart Funds: The nonprofit PHF was launched in 2005 to raise money to help pay for wigs and prosthesis for cancer patients. President is hairstylist JoAn Niceley of Long Beach; the vice president is Michele Hirata of Fat Thumb Originals.

About Fat Thumb Originals: Textile artist-owner Michele Hirata hand-makes soft hats for cancer patients. She both sells and donates them. fatthumb.com.

Address: JoAn Niceley's Hair Studio, 7544 Red Creek Road, Long Beach, 39560.

Details: 452-0001; pinkheartfunds.com and click on Pony Tail Club.