At first glance, Rose McCarthy's dark blond tresses cascading down her back suggest a modern-day Rapunzel.  Like the fairytale princess, her locks will eventually be shorn.  But instead of the hair being used to deceive (as the story's witch did to trap Rapunzel's prince), McCarthy will donate her hair to improve a child's life.  Her 12-inch-plus ponytail will become a wig for a child who has lost hair due to a medical condition.

McCarthy, an Island resident since 1994, speaks with a hint of the Southern accent from her Georgia roots as she discusses her unusual mission, which began four and a half years ago.  One day, she happened to watch a documentary highlighting an organization that gave custom-fitted wigs to disadvantaged children who had lost their own hair, either as a side effect of chemotherapy or radiation treatment, or from a condition called alopecia areata.  The group accepts donations of hair ten inches or longer.  The hairpieces were made with a special vacuum fitting so that wearers can engage in regular activities, such as swimming and other sports, without losing the piece.  Usually, a hairpiece can cost as much as $3,000, but the organization provides them free of charge.

"It interested me because I don't have a lot of money that I can donate to research," she says.  Even though she donates time to other groups – she tutors kids as a Learning Leader and serves on the leadership team for the PTA – McCarthy wanted to do more.  What she does have is thick, healthy, strong hair that grows quickly.  "When I saw that documentary, I thought, 'Well, now, that's something I can do.'  So I just started growing it."

McCarthy, now 57, says she had worn her hair short for many years because she preferred a no-nonsense approach to beauty care.  Short hair was just easier to care for.  Her patience would be tested over the next several years because the longer hair required 30-minute sessions to shampoo and condition, and a six-hour stint to air-dry.  Although she wore it in a simple ponytail and pulled off her face, she still had to watch for unexpected hazards.  (Sticky suckers from a grandchild occasionally tangled in her hair.) The weight of her hair also gave her headaches.

Those challenges were small compared with what McCarthy says a sick child endures, sometimes at the hands of other kids.  "Small children – they don't understand.  They see a little girl who's bald-headed, they say, 'Oh look, she doesn't have any hair.' I can imagine how that would make a child feel to hear that from another child," she says.

Last year, after watching another program about the Locks of Love organization on a Queen Latifah talk show, and with her daughter's quick Internet search, McCarthy gathered the details for donating her hair.  She waited one more year to add a few inches to the length, then made an appointment at the Island beauty salon to cut it this week.

She'll mail the hair to the Florida-based Locks of Love headquarters, where it will be matched and combined with nine other ponytails to make one hairpiece.  McCarthy says she likes to imagine the expression on a child's face, perhaps a little girl, the first time she glimpses her own face framed with braids, or curls or soft waves.  That makes McCarthy's years-long mission worthwhile.

She doesn't have an answer to the question of whether she'll grow her hair long again.  "I don't know," she says, and laughs.  "I want that feeling of nice short hair for a while."  Then, gazing with steady blue eyes, she shares her vision: "I see a lot of people with long hair," she says, "and maybe they'd like a change.  If more people knew about this, maybe they would cut their hair and do the same thing."

For more information about Locks of Love, click on www.locksoflove.org, or call 888-896-1588.