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Rapunzel, Rapunzel, Chop Off Your Hair!

ORU students give hair off their heads to share God's love

By Elissa K. Harvill

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Click Photo to Enlarge "When I see a picture of my long hair, I think, wow, it was long and pretty. But most of the time, I don't miss it. It is so much easier to fix my short hair," Harris said.

Click Photo to Enlarge Gina Fasciani is definitely a long hair kind of girl: "I think [the new cut] makes me look older and I like how much lighter it feels, but I have always had long hair so this is stretching for me. I am already growing it back out!"

Click Photo to Enlarge Here Ally Murri smiles after having her mane cropped to an appealing and low-maintenance bob.

Much to the surprise of the Alumni Relations staff, student worker Alisha Harris returned this semester with her usually cascading strawberry locks bobbed off and bouncing above her shoulders. This was a drastic beauty move for Harris, and the results were quite flattering. But why the big change?

"It has always been one of my goals to grow out my hair and donate it," Harris said. "It was getting long, and so many times I wanted to cut it, but I just kept telling myself, just a few more inches. I could have sold it, but that wouldn't have been helping anyone but me. I wanted to bless someone else. When I finally did cut it, I cut off fifteen inches!"

Harris and two of her ORU friends, Gina Fasciani and Ally Murri, donated their tresses to Locks of Love, a nonprofit organization that makes wigs and gives them to cancer patients that have lost their hair, as well as to children and young women who suffer from an incurable medical condition called alopecia areata, which results in balding.

Locks of Love requires a minimum donation of ten inches of hair, preferably unlayered and unaltered by chemical treatments (hair color, perms, henna, etc.).

Harris admits that she misses the luxuriousness of her long locks, but says she enjoys the ease and versatility of her new 'do.

"It makes me feel like a kid with a new toy," she shared. "I enjoy trying different styles and coming up with cute ways to fix it. My hair grows so fast anyway, so it won't be long 'til I have long hair again."

FYI: Some salons in Tulsa offer free haircuts to those who wish to donate to Locks of Love. Those listed on http://www.locksoflove.org include: Ulta (both locations) and Enrique's Salon.