Written by Amanda Coers – One simple act inspired many more when Kenzie Poindexter came into E-Clips Salon for a haircut. Kenzie recently donated 10 inches of her hair, a tradition she’s continued since she was 4 years old. To date, she’s given a total of 49 inches.
The stylists at E-Clips were inspired by Kenzie’s giving spirit to hold an all-day event to encourage more donations from the community. From 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Tuesday, January 1oth, the salon offered $15 haircuts and will be donating any of the hair collected that is 8 inches or longer to Pantene Beautiful Lengths which has donated 42,000 real-hair wigs to the national American Cancer Society Wig Bank since beginning its program in 2006. Cash donations are also being accepted for the American Cancer Society during the event at E-Clips.
In just the first few hours there were seven hair donations and $50 cash for the American Cancer Society.
Women from all ages donated during the event, including a woman in her 40’s who had never cut her hair beyond small trims. “She was inspired by Kenzie’s story,” said Travis Curry, a stylist at E-Clips and the event coordinator. “So she texted me and said ‘I want to cut 8 inches off’ and that’s the first time she’d ever done that.”
Donations have even come from Abilene and San Angelo thanks to over 1,000 shares on Facebook from the salon’s event page. With the nearly instant success, Curry hopes to turn this into an annual event.
“I’d love to continue this and make people aware that there is a need out there,” said Curry. “A lot of people will come in and have a bunch taken off and they don’t realize they can donate it.”
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Curry says the salon, owned by Rene Hohertz, plans to continue to accept hair donations and will keep bags on hand for collections. He also explained that anyone can bring their hair donations to the salon, whether it was cut there or not, and they’ll happily send it to the Pantene Beautiful Lengths program.
“People might have their stylist they go to all the time, and they can still bring their donations to E-Clips.”
E-Clips recently moved their location from Heartland Mall to 1615 Belle Plain in Brownwood. During the event on January 10th, anyone who comes in and gets a haircut will be entered in a drawing for a hair care gift basket full of Pantene Products, courtesy of Kenzie’s mom, Erocia Donahoo.
“I have cried so many times, it’s amazing what just one haircut and this chain of events that started all of this,” said Donahoo. “When all of this started happening, Kenzie said she didn’t want this attention, but I told her that she’s inspiring people to do this and it’s just been amazing.”