OLDS — A local resident is getting her hair cut for two causes this weekend: the Olds and District Hospice Society and Wigs for Kids, a B.C.-based organization that raises money to provide free custom-fitted human-hair wigs for children who have lost their hair due to cancer or other serious illnesses.
Kelly Siemens, a longtime hospice society volunteer, will have her hair cut Oct. 10. It will then be donated to Wigs for Kids.
Between now and then, people are encouraged to donate money to the hospice society. The campaign ends Oct. 10. As of Oct. 2, $240 had been raised.
Siemens decided to do this for two reasons: to help out cancer victims and to generate money for the hospice society whose 10th anniversary celebration and major fundraiser had to be postponed to 2021, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
She was inspired by nine-year-old Annie Kerkhoff of Innisfail.
Kerkhoff had her hair cut and donated to Wigs for Kids this past summer in honour of her grandmother who is battling aggressive Hodgkins lymphoma.
“I had actually grown my hair to donate it and about two or three years ago. I started looking into where to send it,” Siemens said during an interview.
She read a story in The Albertan about Annie’s donation.
“I had been thinking about a fundraiser for hospice around the same time. And I thought that would be really cool if I could donate my hair and raise some money for hospice, all at the same time,” Siemens added.
She decided to do so in homage to Kerkhoff.
Siemens has been a volunteer for about 20 years; with the hospice society for about five years.
She was initially inspired to do so when the Pine Lake tornado occurred on July 14, 2000.
“I had gone into the hospital that morning to see if they needed any volunteers. And I only saw one couple that had been in the tornado and they had lost a child,” she said.
“It just hit so bad, because a year-and-a-half before, my husband had been in an accident in Mexico and ended up in hospital in surgery and reconstruction and all that neat stuff. And so I just kind of ached for them.”
Another factor was that her son spent most of his first seven years of life in hospital with an immune system disorder.
That in turn led to a desire to volunteer for the hospice society.
“Because it was something I could do to give back,” she said. “I can’t change the people who are dying but maybe I can hold their hand and make it not so scary or make it more comfortable with a cool cloth.”
Olds and District Hospice Society vice-president Harvey Walsh is impressed with Siemens' fundraising idea.
"We appreciate all our donors. They are certainly important to our operations," he wrote in a text.
"Kelly Siemens has certainly been creative in her approach, which has garnered some publicity and also challenged the community to get behind her.
"It's great to have such innovative individuals supporting the Hospice Society."
