Oxford United love to help as many charities as we can and Kieran Hayes, our Academy Head of Recruitment and Player Development has undergone a transformation today to help raise money and awareness for a great cause.
The Little Princess Trust was launched in 2006 by the parents of Hannah Tarplee, along with help from friends and from Hannah’s school, after she was diagnosed with having a Wilms tumour and after a brave battle, died in 2005. At that time, finding high quality wigs for children was very difficult and only after a long search a suitable company was eventually found which made a wig for Hannah. After Hannah passed away her parents decided that the most fitting way to use this help was to launch a charity dedicated to providing specialist real hair children’s wigs.
When he heard about this Kieran began growing his hair, and two and a half years on it had reached well beyond shoulder length and it was time to visit Tru Barbers (@TruBarbers) to have his locks cut off.
The hair will go to the Little Princess Trust while we are looking to raise money for them as well, as Kieran told us:
“It started when I was scouting and one of the boys was the grandson of an ex Oxford player, Paul Berry, who had long hair. We got talking and he said his grandson was growing it for charity. Mine needed a trim even then and I started wondering if I could raise some money by doing something similar.
“I heard about the Little Princess Trust and it seemed a perfect fit for what I wanted to do. Two and a half years later and I figured it had been long enough so I went to Tru Barbers and they cut it all off for me.
“If I’m honest I hardly recognised myself in the mirror but I am glad to have done it and it would be great of people wanted to make a donation, no matter how small, especially at this time of year.”
If you would like to help then visit https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/kieran-hayes4
And to find out more about the Little Princess Trust visit www.littleprincesses.org.uk