Unbelievable. THE most famous "charity" providing wigs to children turns out to be [pick one: a) a serious underperformer, or b) a scam]!
Read this article about "Locks of Love's" activity, large cashflow, how they sell most of the hair they receive, and their paltry accomplishments: http://www.squidoo.com/locksoflove
Referenced in the article was another program that concentrates on providing wigs to women cancer patients.
Compare and contrast, as one of my teachers used to say. http://www.beautifullengths.com/en_US/index_home.jsp
While the latter is clearly good advertising for the main sponsors of the charity, they nonetheless seem to be routing the benefits to where they're needed, and not deceiving anyone as to what happens to their hair, or their contributions. Plus, they accept hair two inches shorter than LoL does.
Comments
A bit more on Locks Of Love
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locks_of_love
A Wikipedia article on Locks of Love
It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice.
Holly
LoL
This article has been going around for a while now. I think this is the third time I've seen it. What a lot of people don't realize is how hard it is to find ideal hair to make the wigs for the young girls. One ponytail might only have a couple of stands long enough or healthy enough to go to the special wigs.
I am a stylist and our salon collects on averge about five donations a week. Even if only a fraction of those get to those who need it, it is helping. There are other charities out there that help in this same fashion. If you don't like Locks of Love, then try Clip for a Cure.
A.A.
old news, unfortunately
I thought everyone knew that LoL was a scam. It was outed in the late '90s as one of those 'charities' that wasn't on the up and up, even though they did everything legal and by the book.
Exposé -- EXPOSED
What you have in this article appears to me to be a disgruntled person who is upset that Locks of Love doesn't provide wigs for the kids she deems most deserving. She states in her bio that she is a cancer survivor, and she mentions cancer over a dozen times in the article, primarily to point out that most of the wigs from LOL do not got to cancer patients, which the charity never claims to be the case. She goes to great lengths to 'expose' how they sell excess hair, referencing an article from the New York Times repeatedly. For instance:
This is taken almost verbatim from the Times article, but she didn't quote the entire paragraph:
An interesting omission, considering she praises both Beautiful Lengths and Wigs 4 Kids later in the article. After searching both of their web sites, however, I can find no place where either of them mentions that they also sell excess hair. It would seem that if Locks of Love is deceiving people, they are not alone.
According to the Times article as well, Locks of Love gets more unusable hair because they get more donations than any of the others -- ten postal bins a day filled with donated hair. All of this has to be sorted through by six paid employees and ten to fifteen volunteers. Compare and contrast you say? Well, Beautiful Lengths has the backing of Pantene, a $3 billion division of Proctor and Gamble; is it any wonder they are able to manage a greater output?
Sorry, the only deception I see here is on the part of the person who wrote the article. I say give Locks of Love a break.
Scott
I cried for her.
I cried for me.
I cried for a world that wouldn’t let her be.
-- from Luna by Julie Anne Peters
http://genomorph.tglibrary.com/
Bree
The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.
-- Tom Clancy
http://genomorph.tglibrary.com/ (Currently broken)
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Twitter: @genomorph
Unless things have changed...
... A LOT, the Locks of Love site states that they accept ANY hair donated, but only some can be used in the wigs. Back when I donated the first time, they said that hair used could not be treated, in any way (perm, colored, straightened, etc.) or be gray (apparently most kids don't have gray hair). They also said that the hair had to be at LEAST ten (10) inches long. They stated on the site that any hair that didn't meet that criteria was welcome, but would be sold. At the time, they also said that most of the money raised would be used for similar charity work, after expenses were paid (including salaries for those sorting the hair and making the wigs, for example). Now, all of that's based on my memory - which I admit is far from perfect. :-)
Am I surprised by the amount they bring in - dollar wise? Yes. I'm surprised that's all they got. Not that they got so much.
Just my 2 cents - if it's worth that much.
Annette
P.S. The existance of such sites allows many to have a "socially acceptable" excuse for growing their hair out... In advance of transitioning (I still plan on donating SOME of my hair. Though I'll miss it, it'll grow back.)