Meet Samantha Brown.…a first year student at the University of Calgary earning her Bachelor of Health Sciences Degree in Biomedical Sciences. At the age of 6 Sam started a personal initiative called BraidShare. Since then, she has donated her hair 3 times, a total of 48.5 inches! In addition to her hair donation, along with friends and family, she has raised over $10,000 for Kids Cancer Care! This is her story….
“I was first inspired to donate my hair at the age of 6 while watching my favorite TV show, Zoom. On the show I watched a vignette of a girl cutting and donating her hair to make a wig. This led to a family discussion about cancer and illness-related hair loss and why it is important for people to donate their hair. I had always had longer hair, so I thought hey, I want to do that too! Two years later, when I was 8 years old, I did my first "Hair Harvest," donating 12 inches of my hair. Around this time, I decided that there should be a name for the donating of my hair. I came up with the name “BraidShare”, a name I felt, and still believe, is a best representation of what it is that I do—I share my braids. Ever since then, the name just stuck.
Three years later, in 2005, I was ready to donate my hair again. This time, I wanted to do some fundraising as well. My sister Amanda (who had donated her hair with me the first time along with our mom) and I came across the Kids Cancer Care Foundation of Alberta's Camp Kindle. Camp Kindle is a special camp for kids and their siblings who have been touched by cancer. The tuition of the camp is covered 100% by donations, so their families don't have to pay anything. Summer camp has always been (and still is) a favorite part of our year, and we believe that even if you are sick or your family is going through a rough time, you should still get to have fun and go to camp. So, together we crocheted and sold bookmarks that looked like little braids. We raised $500, enough to send a kid to camp, and donated our hair again. This time I donated 21.5 inches, and Amanda donated 18 inches.
We didn't stop there. The following year, the cost to send a kid to camp went up to $900. We needed to do more than selling bookmarks, so we decided to organize a craft fair as a fundraiser. All of the money from renting vendor tables went to the KCCFA. This was extremely successful and we organized our fundraiser holiday craft fair for 4 years, each time raising over $1000.
In 2007, we donated our hair again (15 inches for me, 12 inches for Amanda), but this time we were joined by our brother, Dennis, who participated in the Shave Your Lid for a Kid program (he has now done a total of three shaves so far). To date, the three of us have raised over $10,000 for Camp Kindle. On Wednesday, April 18th, I will be doing my fourth hair harvest. I want to raise another $1000 to send another kid to camp. With the support of my community, I have raised $721 in only a couple of days!”
-Sam
If you are interested in making a donation to Sam's 2012 BraidShare, please follow the link: https://secure.csfm.com/kidscancer/shaveyourlidforakid/home/profile.php?participant_id=411833671333480838
No comments:
Post a Comment