Sts. Peter and Paul School Girls Donate Over 250 Inches of Hair for Lent

Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic STEM School Students smile for a photo with the ponytails they had cut to support others with hair loss. (Photo provided)

By Megan Nix

Some children give up eating sweets, watching TV or fighting with siblings for Lent. But this year, 20 girls at Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic STEM School in Wheat Ridge gave up something less common this year: their hair.

At noon on Holy Monday, a group made their way to Hendrix Salon for a “cut-a-thon:” each child would donate their long hair, grown throughout Lent, to children with hair loss. The recipients, through a non-profit called Children with Hair Loss, will receive a wig at no cost as they journey through diagnoses like cancer or alopecia.

Before reaching the salon — where six stylists volunteered their time on their day off work — students like fifth-grader Penelope were filled with emotion. She had never donated her honey-brown hair, which reached midway to her elbow.

“I’m excited,” she said, smiling and pulling subconsciously on its length. “I know I’m giving my hair to a real person. I know that person is going to be excited, and I’m going to think in my head, that’s my hair!"

When asked how this Lenten sacrifice might affect her, she shared, “I’m physically and mentally attached to my hair. I probably care about it too much. In the morning, I take forever on my hair, so now I’ll have more time for prayers.”

Once the students arrived at the salon, the stylists introduced themselves, and the air became electric with anticipation. The girls said they felt nervous, excited, happy, scared and grateful. Then the measuring tapes came out: 8 inches, 10 inches, 14 inches.

“Are you ready?” Kera Clyde, the salon owner, asked Jane, the fifth grader in her chair.

“Yes!” Jane exclaimed as eight inches of her straight blonde hair fell into Kera’s hands.

(Photos provided)

Femininity Elevated

In the middle of the room, Sister Ines Sandoval, OCD, a school administrator, watched in joyful contemplation. As a Carmelite sister, she knows what it means to “donate” not only her hair but her entire life to God. The black veil over her brown Carmelite habit conceals all but her face.

“A woman’s crown is her hair,” she explained. “It is a sign of beauty and grace. In relinquishing this ‘crown,’ we entrust it to God, who elevates the beauty of our femininity to another level.”

That dynamic could actually be felt looking around the room: gone were the long-haired girls who had come into the salon. In their place stood new young women, more sophisticated now, whose hair had become something more than strands on their heads. They are joined with someone else now, through a loss they intimately share.

Sister Ines then pointed to the Mass reading that very day.

“Before Jesus died, a woman poured out her alabaster jar of costly perfume over his feet and wiped them with her hair. Some said it was a waste. But the fragrance of this act of love accompanied Jesus all the way to Calvary," she reflected. “These girls also sacrificed a precious part of themselves, and it is not a waste. For someone undergoing the humiliation of alopecia or the suffering of cancer, this sacrifice will accompany them through their own difficult journey.”

Then she looked at the girls and said, “Aren’t they beautiful?”

A Personal Connection

As the girls gathered in the center of the room, trying out ponytails and shaking out their fresh, blunt ends, Ashton Gosage, one of the hair stylists who had volunteered for the “cut-a-thon" watched with a smile.

The stylist, with her stylish, close-cropped, dark curls, had her own connection to the event: she has alopecia, an autoimmune disease that attacks hair follicles, often without explanation. Ashton had been a stylist for five years when her hair unexpectedly started falling out. She never found out why. In January 2024, she was completely bald.

“I only wore scarves at first. I was in such denial,” she remembered. “I didn’t want a wig because I didn’t think it was actually happening.”

Ashton now takes medication that regrew her hair, but she doesn’t know if it will continue to work.

When asked how she felt about the girls donating their hair, she said, “That’s why I volunteered to come in. I actually work at a different salon, but my friend who works here told me what was going on. I couldn’t have imagined a better opportunity to give back to something that hits so close to home.”

Beauty Within

Across the room, while watching her daughters Ana and Emilia each donate ten inches of their glossy black hair, Marta Gonzales wiped tears from her face — just before donating 12 inches of her own hair.

For Annie and Lucy, sisters in fifth and second grade, this was nothing new, as both have contributed their hair multiple times. After they both had their pigtails cut off, it was their little sister Josephine’s turn. The event occurred on Josephine’s fourth birthday, so Kalli Spaw, who happens to be the girls’ aunt, gave Josephine her first haircut — a trim of ten inches.

Heather Zadigian, the school’s PE and health teacher, who helped organize the event, has donated her hair seven times and told Kalli she wanted to donate 16 inches this year.

Maybe the most remarkable of all, though, were the seventh-grade girls, who smiled, shimmied into their chairs and told their stylists how much to cut, seemingly unflappable in the face of such great physical change.

“That’s because they know their beauty lies within!” Zadigan cheered them on, referencing a line she’d instilled in the girls from the First Letter of St. Peter.

Natalie had the longest hair of all — ink black, probably 24 inches long, with wispy bangs framing her square black glasses. Natalie, it turns out, had never set foot in a salon. By chance — or by something much greater — she walked into the room and was immediately paired up with Ashton.

Standing behind Natalie, her mom said it was a bittersweet moment for her; she’d done Natalie’s hair trims at home since she was an infant. When asked how Natalie felt leading up to the event, her mom noted Natalie’s commitment.

“No,” her mom said. “When I told her the hair was for someone else, she said, ‘I really want to do that. When’s it going to be?’ But Natalie hoped she was going to meet someone at the salon today who has hair loss.”

Little did she know, her own hairstylist was that person. As Ashton measured Natalie’s hair — 17 inches to donate in total, more than anyone else — she shared her story.

Then, with her metal cutting shears, Ashton cut each side of Natalie’s hair, catching each long ponytail in her hands. Now with a shoulder-length bob, Natalie had the slight smile she always has.

“I just feel happy,” she said, looking at Ashton in the mirror.

Megan Nix is a mother of five (and her children go to Sts. Peter and Paul School). Her book, Remedies for Sorrow, is available from Penguin Random House.