Twins donate hair to ‘Locks of Love’

Until last Thursday, Marshall Middle School students Ryan and Jacob Connell may have had the longest hair of any boy at school.

The sixth-grade twin brothers each donated more than 10 inches last week to “Locks of Love,” an organization providing hair pieces to financially disadvantaged children who suffer from long-term medical hair loss from any diagnosis.

“We wanted to do this for our grandmother,” said Jacob Connell. “She died with no hair and we wanted to do something.”

Their mother, Beth Connell, believes it was a way to “give back” while remembering their grandmother, who died from breast cancer in 2007.

“I was fine with the idea,” she said. “They just had to keep it neat and when it got long, it had to go into a ponytail.”

Since their last haircut in spring 2009, Connell has taught her sons to take care of long hair, which surprised them with its penchant for tangles.

“There was a lot of brushing and a lot of knots and a lot of conditioner,” said Ryan Connell, making a face.

The twins, whose light blond hair grew long and straight, were often mistaken for girls during the process.

“I can’t tell you how many times people have come up to me to compliment me on my daughters,” Beth Connell said.

But the boys say they also endured deliberate comments mistaking their identity.

“They would call us girls,” said Ryan Connell of the teasing he and his brother received from elementary school classmates. “Most of the kids we’ve known since kindergarten, though, and when we told them that we were going to change people’s lives with our hair, they understood.”

Close friends and teachers believed in their goal, calling the endeavor “worthy.”

“I think their example is important because kids their ages these days should be exposed to more charitable opportunities like that,” said Lynsey Brubaker, a fifth-grade teacher at C. Hunter Ritchie Elementary who taught both boys. “So often they’re in their own little world, and for other kids to see kids their own age donating to a charitable cause was a good thing.”

To Brubaker, the fact that such a significant hair donation came from boys was “definitely unusual...and exciting.”

The transition to middle school, where the twins faced new classmates in a new school, proved the catalyst for last week’s haircut.

“A lot of kids didn’t understand,” said Ryan Connell, adding that the teasing has been worse since moving to sixth grade.

Despite the obstacles, Beth Connell said she is proud of her sons.

“The teasing has been pretty bad [recently],” she said. “But they had a goal in mind and they’ve stuck to it no matter what people have said.”

Both boys say the experience has taught them that hair does-n’t define a person.

“Boys can have long hair and girls can have short hair,” Ryan Connell said.

“When you say you have a goal, it means you should try to achieve it and not leave it and give up,” Jacob Connell said.“Our goal is going to change lives.”