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Wednesday, May 2,2018
dawsonnews.com I DAWSON COUNTY NEWS I 3A
Fifth-graders shave heads to support friend’s cancer fight
Jessica Brown Dawson County News
Black's Mill Elementary fifth graders Mia Phillips
and Lili Almazan recently shaved their heads and
donated their hair to Wigs for Kids in support of
their friend Natalie Herndon (center) who was
recently diagnosed with leukemia.
By Jessica Brown
jbrown@dawsonnews.com
It was an otherwise
ordinary Monday morn
ing when Mia Phillips
walked in to her fifth
grade class at Black’s
Mill Elementary School
sporting a beanie cap, her
long locks gone, her head
shaved.
Then Lili Almazan
walked into her classroom
the next morning, her
long hair gone as well.
The two shaved their
heads in support of their
friend and classmate
Natalie Herndon, who lost
her hair to chemotherapy
in April.
“I wanted to support
Natalie so she wouldn’t
feel like she was different
or alone,” said Almazan,
11.
The girls decided to
donate their hair to Wigs
for Kids, a nonprofit orga
nization that provides free
wigs to children who have
lost their hair from cancer
treatment.
“They had a lot of hair
to share,” said their teach
er, Jessie Venem. Venem
said the girls had the lon
gest hair in her class.
Herndon was diagnosed
with childhood acute lym-
phoblastic leukemia
(ALL) March 13 and has
been undergoing chemo
therapy and procedures at
Children’s Healthcare of
Atlanta since then.
“Everyone there is
super nice and really help
ful,” Herndon said.
It can be tough getting
up in the mornings and
finding motivation to go
to school, Herndon said,
as the medicines make her
feel ill.
“It’s been kind of hard
because I’m not really
feeling great during the
day and all the medicines
and everything have been
making me not feel
good,” Herndon said.
“Usually toward the after
noon I start to feel better.
It’s like you wish you felt
better in the morning but
you usually feel better at
night.”
But coming to school
and seeing her two close
friends covering their
buzzed heads with bean
ies put a smile on
Herndon’s face.
“I was really happy and
really surprised. It was
really nice and sweet of
them to donate their hair
to the little kids and
everyone else without
their hair,” Herndon said.
The decision to donate
17 inches of hair was an
easy one for 10-year-old
Phillips, who thought
long and hard about it for
two and a half weeks.
“Well I was really
scared for Natalie and so I
really, I saw her. I could
tell how she felt and so I
just wanted to support her
in any way that I could,”
Phillips said.
She thought about her
hair and how she didn’t
have time in the mornings
to do more than just brush
it.
“I decided maybe I
could just get rid of it and
I could donate it and then
I would look like Natalie
too and so maybe she
wouldn’t feel so differ
ent,” Phillips said.
Phillips’ mom, Jessica,
told her daughter to think
over her decision for a
few more days in case she
changed her mind.
“She thought that I was
going to be mad at her
because she thought that I
would regret it and be
mad at her for cutting my
hair off and I’m like ‘It
would be my fault
because I told you to,”’
Phillips said.
With no regrets,
Phillips’ watched in the
bathroom mirror the night
of April 22 as her mom
snipped her long ponytail
off.
“When I looked in the
mirror I was like ‘This is
not what I imagined but
it’s kind of what I imag
ined’ but like, it was like
everything was different
after that but different in
like what I wanted,”
Phillips said. “Like when
I put a shirt on I don’t
have to pull my hair out
of it and now if there’s
like I don’t know, hair in
the shower or something
then I can blame it on my
mom because it’s not me
anymore.”
Alamazan followed
suit, going over to
Phillips’ house the next
night to have Mia’s mom
cut her hair too. When she
looked in the mirror and
saw the absence of 14
inches of hair, she was
shocked.
“I felt a little bit sur
prised because I used to
have such long hair,” said
Almazan, who said she
had never really had short
hair before. “When I
looked in like the mirror
when I got home I was
happy that I did it because
I was supporting Natalie.”
Herndon said that when
she started losing her hair
due to the chemotherapy,
she asked her father to
shave it so it wouldn’t be
all spiky. But she did have
a little fun before that.
“When I started losing
my hair it got really short
(in the front) and just for
fun I’d comb it over and
call myself Donald
Trump,” Herndon said,
smiling as she and her
friends giggled.
Through it all, Herndon
has been coping well and
her attitude has been very
optimistic according to
her mother, Jaime.
Jaime said that Black’s
Mill Elementary and
Herndon’s classmates
have been very supportive
of her, and that the school
has donated to Children’s
Healthcare of Atlanta.
Students have brought in
food and supplies for the
Ronald McDonald Lamily
Room at CHOA, a room
completely run on dona
tions. There, families and
patients relax, store food
from home and get snacks
and supplies during hospi
tal stays.
The best friends also
have a powerful message
for the world about sup
porting one another and
being kind to those who
look different.
“It’s important that no
matter what people look
like, it’s important to treat
them the same because
you never know what
people have been through
and, you know, it’s not
their fault,” Phillips said.
“Everyone has a story
to tell and how what
they’ve gone through and
like Mia said you don’t
really know what they’ve
gone through so you can’t
judge them or just you
don’t know so you can’t
be mean or stare or judge
them for what they do
because sometimes they
can’t help it,” Herndon
said.
The Herndon family
has not set up a fundrais
ing page for Natalie, but
they ask if anyone would
like to make donations on
her behalf to contact April
Smith at April.Smith@
armhc.org or donate to the
Ronald McDonald Room
at CHOA.
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