A Grade 2 student from Cochrane cut her teacher's hair March 14 to celebrate raising more than $7,800 for two cancer foundations in less than two months.
Glenbow Elementary School teacher Jessica Powers and student Ella Reimer kickstarted the 'Share the Love' fundraiser in February, after the two bonded over their shared experiences as cancer survivors.
"Last year, I actually was coming back from breast cancer and the Grade 1 class was neighbouring my classroom, and so [Ella] and I formed a little connection talking about cancer and surgeries and scars," Powers said. "I was really happy when I found out she was in my classes this year and we'd already kind of formed that connection."
Powers had recovered from thyroid cancer when she was diagnosed with breast cancer 12 years later, in 2020.
Seven-year-old Ella was diagnosed with brain cancer at two-and-a-half years old. Since then, she's had nine surgeries and two types of chemotherapy.
"It breaks your heart as a parent to see your kid go through anything like that," said Ella's mom, Christie. "Each surgery was harder and harder learning all these things about her cancer and each chemo session made her sicker and sicker."
She is now considered stable, but the form of brain cancer she has is incurable as doctors can't remove the entire tumour.
Together, the two wanted to raise funds for the Kids Cancer Care and the Alberta Cancer Foundation.
"We took a vote on the name of our project and thought 'Share the Love' was the most fitting," Powers said. "Ella and I have talked about how when we both had cancer, that people gave us a lot of love."
The classroom fundraiser saw students selling handcrafted cards.
Then, the pièce de résistance, Ella took scissors to Powers' hair to trim away 12 inches for donation.
Powers said she had stopped cutting her hair when she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
"I thought, if I need chemo, I'm not cutting it," she said. "I'll shave it if I need to."
She underwent a mastectomy and went into remission, with no chemo necessary. She kept her hair and kept on growing it since she couldn't see her stylist due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
"I thought I would like to donate my hair and I definitely want to do something to give back to the Alberta Cancer Foundation who've helped me," Powers said.
"I knew that Ella and her family also give back to Kids Cancer Care, so I thought it was good fit in that we both wanted to give back to the organizations that helped us."
On March 14, students gathered wearing yellow — the colour representing support for kids cancer — to the hair-cutting ceremony. Ella had with her a string of beads 515 long. Each bead represents a procedure, poke, overnight stay, chemotherapy treatment or scan along her cancer journey.
Donations are still being accepted until March 31 through Simplyk, an online fundraising app.
Visit https://app.simplyk.io/fundraising/35b31e26-84a9-4b2a-ac1d-82b99b70d347 for more information.
—With files from Jessica Lee/Cochrane Eagle
