Locks of Love
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Locks of Love is a non-profit charity based in the United States. The organization accepts donations of human hair and money, with the stated intention of making wigs for needy children who have lost their hair due to a medical condition.
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[edit] Requirements for recipients
To be eligible to receive a hairpiece, a child must:
- Be 18 years or younger.
- Have long-term or short-term hair loss from alopecia areata (an autoimmune illness), scalp burns, or a similar medical condition.
- Provide proof of financial need.
Locks of Love does not provide all hairpieces free of charge. According to its website, prices for human-hair wigs are set on a sliding scale based on the recipient's family income.
[edit] Requirements for donors
Locks of Love accepts donations from people of all ages, races, and nationalities. However, they do have some specific requirements for hair donations they accept.
- Donated hair must be ten inches or longer. (Curly hair can be pulled straight to meet the requirement.)[1]
- Hair may not be bleached, chemically damaged, or overprocessed; permed or coloured hair is acceptable.
- Hair must be in the form of a clean, dry ponytail or braid. Dreadlocks are not accepted.
- Hair that is less than ten inches or grey is separated from the donations and sold to offset manufacturing costs.
[edit] Tax deductions
As the hair is considered to be a body part and is analogous to blood, any hair donations are not tax deductible according to IRS guidelines but financial donations are deductible.[2]
[edit] Criticisms
Locks of Love has received criticism for its practice of selling donated hair, rather than using it in wigs as the donors expect. They refer to the hair they sell as "unusable material," but the buyers are using it to make wigs. According to a 2003 report by the Better Business Bureau’s Wise Giving Alliance, in 2002 alone Locks of Love had raised over $150,000 by selling donated hair and had received another $213,000 in charitable contributions and grants, but provided only 113 human-hair wigs.
Locks of Love representatives are frequent guests on The Oprah Winfrey Show and other daytime television shows, where they provide haircuts to guests and audience members. Though the representatives and show hosts normally suggest that the hair collected during the show will go into a wig, that the wigs are given free of charge to children with cancer, neither of these outcomes is guaranteed.[citation needed] The organization was formed to help people with the illness of alopecia, not to help cancer patients.
[edit] Accountability standards
The Better Business Bureau report issued July 2008 states that Locks of Love does not meet its standards for charity accountability because the organization did not accurately report the charity's expenses in its financial statements despite requests for that information.[3] The Better Business Bureau reports that Locks of Love made $352,401 from "unusable material sales".[citation needed]
[edit] See also
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Locks of Love |
[edit] References
- ^ Locks of Love
- ^ http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p526.pdf
- ^ "Charity Review of Locks of Love". Better Business Bureau. July 2008. http://www.bbb.org/charity-reviews/national/toc/locks-of-love-in-lake-worth-fl-1839. Retrieved August 24, 2009.
