It has been 4 years since his mother passed away from cancer. “She had always had very long, very smooth, very black hair”. So describes Anthony, 33, Roman, Pentathlon enthusiast, biologist researcher, who now tells his story to Salute Seno (here the link to subscribe to the newsletter for free). The diagnosis, lung cancer, arrived in September 2015, then in October the first course of chemo. “She was desperate that her hair would fall out. None of us understood the gravity of the situation. I’m sorry to tell you, I told her, but you have to cut them before they start to fall. We both do the ‘ball’, then we choose a wig. So I searched the internet for specialized sites, both to understand where to go to buy the wig (I had no idea that they cost so much!) And to whom I could donate her hair. But she didn’t let me cut them. She agreed to lose them and never felt difficult to show what she was sadly enduring. I respected his choice, but that day I made myself a promise ”.
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The special appointment at the barber shop
Anthony he accompanied his mother to every chemotherapy session she waitsndola in the waiting room. In those months she has seen many people lose their hair. However, the tumor quickly worsened and caused respiratory arrest on May 4, 2016. Sometime after his mother’s disappearance, Anthony came into contact with a wig donation association, but the requirement was that the locks be at least 10 inches long. At that point, she made a decision: she started growing her hair. “I never told anyone, not even my four brothers, who insisted I cut them, or the barber, who is a friend. I went to him every six months to keep them in order. One day I called him and told him that I needed an appointment for May 4th: it had to be that day ”.
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Nobody liked Anthony with that long hair, but he pushed his cause forward, and exactly two years after his mother’s death he cut his 40-centimeter long strands to donate them to the “An Angel for Hair” association and pay tribute to her. “I certainly won’t have saved the world, I certainly won’t have found the cure for cancer, but maybe I helped a person in need and gave her a smile,” he wrote on his Facebook profile. He is reserved, Anthony, but happy to having made his story public and that eight other people have asked him for information to be able to do the same thing, even after a long time.
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Waiting to be able to donate your hair again
She started growing her hair again soon after, and cut it again after more than two years. Those very long locks, however, are still waiting to be donated because, due to Covid, the whole system has slowed down and at the moment the non-profit organization Anthony had turned to has suspended its activity. “Angelo per capello” is not the only stand-by project. Even “Let’s get a cut”, promoted by the RagionevolMente association in collaboration with the Lilt of Trento and Bolzano, had to stop the collection of locks and the delivery of wigs. “The companies we work with for the free donation of cancer wigs have informed us that they have been in dire straits due to the pandemic. Similarly, it is difficult for our small volunteer association to manage and support the logistics of the many donations received in 2020 ”. you read on the site.
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How hair is collected and for whom
The ways in which the hair is collected can be different (for requested lengths, treatments and colors allowed and not, and so on), as well as the purposes. In the case of “Let’s get a cut”, for example, the locks are given to two companies that use them for mending and repairs of wigs, and who in return supply new wigs, which may be natural hair (which the association exchanges with 1,500 grams of donated hair) or synthetic (exchanged for 800 grams). The advice, for those who want to give their hair today, is to contact the associations of cancer patients in their area, which often also deal with the donation of wigs or who can provide information. The FraParentisi association, for example, brings together people and initiatives that offer useful services to cancer patients and has a section dedicated to the choice of wigs.
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A tricoteca and many messages
A very different project, which has not stopped, is Smile, carried out by a company in Rome, Tricostarc, together with the Prometeus Foundation and the ATRI (Advanced Tricology Research International) Onlus association. In this case, the donated locks become part of a tricotheque: for patients who request a natural wig, the same type of hair is sought, with the aim of not changing the identity of the person. In this way the price of the wig is also reduced by more than half, because the cost of the raw material does not have to be borne and only that of the processing remains (we are talking about figures that, normally, range from one thousand to 4 thousand euros). At the same time, however, it may take some time before the donated hair is used. “There is a lot of work behind collecting these donations and making a wig,” he explains Giusy Giambertone, owner of the company (which historically worked in the world of cinema and fashion) and promoter of the project, born ten years ago: “I wanted to make this product socially useful and with attention to waste. And I wanted the giver and the recipient to be linked in some way. Hence the idea of Smile, a smile in fact, brought with a message that is delivered by those who give their hair and directed to those who will receive them and who, in turn, responds with a message “.
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The locks donated in this case must be at least 40 centimeters, because the processing requires about 10. The Smile project receives many donations, more or less 10 a day, but many – explains Giambertone – are not usable, because the hair is too much short or, at times, damaged. “To be able to make a wig you need at least 6-7 donations. Every year we deliver about 300 natural wigs “. As many, this time synthetic, are instead given on free loan to the patients of the San Giovanni – Addolorata Hospital in Rome. The project is called” Banca della Wig “and is a chain of solidarity in which wigs, donated by ex-patients who no longer need them, are made available for free to other women.
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A braid for the IOV
In these days, finally, another solidarity initiative has started in Caorle (Venice): those who have a braid at least 25 centimeters long to donate, can bring it to one of the hotels of the Caorlehotel chain, which in turn will donate it to the Istituto Oncologico Veneto (IOV) to make wigs for patients. In exchange for this gesture, the hotel chain offers a free overnight stay (except Fridays and Saturdays) or other services for the entire month of September. As he says Marilisa Rizzetti, an employee of Caorlehotel, from which this and other initiatives in favor of the IOV were born, “they are small gestures, but if they are done by many people they turn into concrete help”.
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