AFTER growing her hair for 13 years, Winkie’s Keisha Barber recently decided to “do some good in the community” by cutting and donating her luscious locks to charity.
Mrs Barber donated 45cm of her hair to Variety Children’s Charity Hair with Heart and during the process raised more than $2700, which was donated to Barmera’s Caroline Bristow Wig Library.
Mrs Barber said cutting her “iconic long hair” was something she wanted to do for a while.
“My hair was extremely long and getting hard to look after… most of the time it lived in a ponytail,” she said.
“I love volunteering and annually I get involved in community projects.
“This year I hadn’t done any volunteering at all but someone told me about the Caroline Bristow Wig Library in Barmera, which I didn’t even know existed, and I wanted to do some good in the community.
“I decided to cut my hair and donate it to Hair with Heart and raise money for the wig library in the process.”
Mrs Barber said she was overwhelmed by the community’s support.
“I fundraised in many different ways: selling chocolate boxes, cookies, candles, a raffle, and people gave me money themselves,” she said.
“I created a Facebook page called Keisha’s Big Chop, which allowed family, friends and community members to keep up to date with my fundraising progress, as well as get involved.
“My goal was to raise $1000, but I managed to almost triple it which was great.
“I cannot thank the community enough for all their support.”
Mrs Barber thanked Jaye Brand from Berri’s Honey Honey Salon for the fundraising haircut.
“Jaye donated her time into cutting my hair and I had many family and friends there for the moment,” she said.
“For those that weren’t there, they were able to watch it online, as it had been live streamed.”
Mrs Barber will continue to take monetary donations until the end of the week.