When Will Sandwith was a little tyke at Herbert Spencer Elementary he noticed a boy was letting his hair grow extremely long. He wanted to know why and was informed Russ intended to donate it.
“You can do that? You can grow out your hair and just give it away?” said an astonished little Will. “Nifty! Well, I want to do that.”
So he told his parents, “I don’t want to get my hair cut. I want to grow it out and I want to donate it.”
They said, “All right, it’s your hair. You’re the one who has to keep up with it. Now you have to take care of it.”
“Yeah, I’ll do that, I’ll do that,” he promised excitedly in a high-pitched voice.
“Yeah, I’ll do that,” says a deep-voiced Sandwith sarcastically12 years later, realizing how naive he was.
Four years later, in 2009, when he was 13 and moving on from Glenbrook Middle School to New Westminster Secondary, he got up on stage at a school assembly and finally had it chopped off. His bright red mop top was donated to Angel Hair For Kids and Wigs for Kids B.C. He also raised $800 in the process.
Then he began growing it again. It’s still growing.
The tentative plan was to cut it again when he finished high school. But during his grad year, in 2014, the B.C. Teachers Federation and the provincial government were at war and there were no classes that June.
While all the kids were ecstatic, says Sandwith, all the grad stuff was scrapped, including his planned cutting ceremony. So he kept letting his hair grow.
“I didn’t consider (cutting) it very strongly afterward. I knew I was going to donate it eventually, I just wasn’t quite sure when,” says Sandwith.
That was until a few weeks ago when his boss, Spud Shack owner Dan Close, asked him, “When are you cutting off your hair?”
“I’m not quite sure,” came the apprehensive reply.
“Well why don’t we cut it off this summer? I can put the news out there, and I’ll contact the hairdresser who does my wife’s hair and we can raise some money for it,” said Close.
Sandwith, who is known at the Shops at New Westminster Station establishment as ‘the hairy one,’ said, “Yeah, that sounds great.”
Close snapped a picture of Sandwith and his lush, long locks and the beard he added to the mix two years ago. Close sent the snapshot off to the hairdresser, Michael Levine, who owns three salons/academies in Greater Vancouver. Levine was eager to cut the hair, but only if he got to chop off Sandwith's bushy beard, too, although it won’t be donated.
But he agreed. So on Aug. 22, it’ll all go. In addition to donating his flowing mane, Sandwith has a goal to raise $5,000 for Wigs for Kids B.C. So far there have been about $500 in contributions. Typically, he said, between eight to 10 donations are required to make one wig at a cost of about $3,000.
“As long as somebody has confidence in themselves because of my donation, that’s good enough for me,” says Sandwith, who has made taking care of his tresses part of his daily routine.
“It can be a hassle making sure you brush it every day. You’ve got to shampoo, you’ve got to condition as often as you can just so it stays nice, so it doesn’t get tangled or there are any dead ends. It was more work involved to it than just letting it grow, but it was definitely worth it in the end.”
The process of washing, conditioning and patting it down takes 20 to 30 minutes, and up to 90 minutes to dry. “Even with a towel or a blow dryer you don’t get all the way in because the hair is so thick, there’s so many layers to it.”
At work, he has to put it up in a bun and tie his beard back.
“It’s definitely a concern, and it’s a fair concern,” he says. “I know having somebody with really long hair is maybe a little off-putting, but rest assured we do everything we can to make sure nothing gets in the food. So far in my 18 months of employment, not once have I got hair in the food.”
Sandwith wonders if his friends and family will recognize him once his hair and beard have been severed. Heck, he’s not sure if he’ll recognize himself when he looks in a mirror.
“My friends told me, ‘You’re going to have phantom hair syndrome where you’re going to feel something on the back of your neck and you’re going to think, ‘well it’s my hair,’ ” says Sandwith.
But it won’t be. It will be all gone. To a good cause.
• To donate go to https://secure.bcchf.ca/SuperheroPages/main.cfm?Event=WigsForKids&Member=79670 or wigsforbc.com.
