wfn.org | United Methodist donates once-long hair to help others

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

June 29, 2000 News media contact: Linda Green·(615)742-5470·Nashville, Tenn.
10-71B{306}

By Terra Temple*

DYERSBURG, Tenn. (UMNS) -- Nine years ago, Berta Dickerson had the accident
that changed her life.

In the months that followed, she and her family received an outpouring of
love, prayer and financial assistance that helped them through that
difficult time.

So, when Dickerson learned a few months ago that she could help others, the
43-year-old quadriplegic responded immediately.

She cut her hair.

"My hair was too long to manage with the chair," said Dickerson, a member of
East Dyersburg United Methodist Church. "It was down between me and the
chair. I wanted to get 6 inches cut off, but I didn't want to throw it
away."

She remembered hearing about a place that makes wigs using donated hair. She
called St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, which gave her
contact information for Locks of Love, a Palm Springs, Fla.,-based,
non-profit organization that provides custom, vacuum-cap hairpieces for
financially disadvantaged children under 18 across the United States who are
suffering from long-term medical hair loss.

However, when Dickerson learned the organization accepts a minimum 10 inches
of hair, she had to think about it. "I took a month to decide, because I
didn't want it short," she said. "I had always gotten compliments on my hair
- how healthy it was, its color, its length."

Dickerson said she was 10 when she got her first haircut. "I earned the
money and convinced my mother to let me do it," she said. "It was waist long
and they cut it to my shoulders."

She was so upset; she didn't get her hair cut again until she was 23 and
pregnant with her daughter, Kari. At that point, she got her hair cut short
and kept it short for the next 15 years. Four years ago, she let it grow
back out.

"I always got an inch cut off when Kari got hers trimmed every six to eight
weeks" she said. "When she went to school, I just let it grow."

In April, she took the plunge. She and her husband, Earl - pastor of the
Dyersburg church -- visited her hairstylist.

"Earl held the ruler, and they cut off a foot," she said. "He told me that a
week later. I didn't want it short, and I got it 2 inches shorter (than I
thought I would)."

Locks of Love began in 1997. In its three years of existence, the
organization has helped about 200 children through the thousands of bundles
of hair it's received from around the country. It accepts hair from men,
women, young, old, all colors and all races. Because most of the children
Locks of Love helps are girls who want long hair, minimum donations of 10
inches are requested. The manufacturing process uses 2 inches of hair,
leaving an 8-inch length.

The organization asks donors to put their clean, dry hair in a ponytail or
braid before cutting. The hair has to be a minimum of 10 inches from tip to
tip and not be a wig, fall or synthetic. After being cut, the hair is put in
a plastic bag and mailed to the organization. It takes 12 donated ponytails
to make a single hairpiece. The actual assembly of each hairpiece takes four
months.

Locks of Love provides children with the hairpieces and their subsequent
maintenance free of charge, or on a sliding scale based on the financial
situation of those responsible for the children. If the child's family had
to buy the hairpiece, the custom piece would start at $3,000.

Dickerson had the accident that left her paralyzed on Jan. 1, 1991, when her
family lived in Western Kentucky. Several months earlier, Dickerson had
accepted the Lord into her life, and her faith proved instrumental in
helping her deal with her injury.

Though Dickerson had been a preacher's wife since 1985, it was in name only.

"I wouldn't attend Sunday school and made all kinds of excuses to skip
church," she said. "My family didn't go to church (when I was growing up)."

She and Earl had met in June 1984, when she was a licensed practical nurse
at Methodist Central Hospital in Memphis, and they were married the
following year. Six months later, her daughter Kari from a previous marriage
came to live with them in Benton, Ky., where Earl was pastor of Pleasant
Grove United Methodist Church. Using work and nursing school as excuses,
Berta still wouldn't attend church. But after she got her degree and her job
changed, the excuses ran out. She began attending more, and in April 1990,
"I accepted the Lord."

"On Jan. 1, 1991, Satan had enough. He wanted us stopped," she added.

She and Kari, who was 10 at the time, were on their way to meet with
Dickerson's prayer group.
They were 2 1/2 miles from home. "We were talking, and I missed my turn. I
decided to take the next road even though I wasn't familiar with it,"
Dickerson said. "Suddenly, as we topped a hill, there was a stop sign. I
couldn't stop. We went under the trailer of an 18-wheeler. We were dragged
sideways 165 yards, before spinning around and being thrown on the other
side."

The car was so compressed, no one checked for survivors until Dickerson's
cousin arrived on the scene. Both Dickerson and Kari were still alive. Kari
had cuts that required stitches; Dickerson's   neck was broken.

In the weeks that followed, Dickerson's neurosurgeon told her husband that,
if she lived, she "would be brain damaged, ventilator dependent and
bedridden for life - a vegetable. He told Earl, 'You are too young to be
stuck with something like that,'" Dickerson wrote in her testimony. "He
offered some simple things that could be 'not' done so I would die, quickly
and pain-free. In that moment, God replayed in Earl's mind the oath he had
taken on our wedding day . . .  'in sickness and in health . . .for as long
as you both shall live.'"

Dickerson said her first memory after the accident was of being in the
hospital, and her younger sister Bobbi telling her it "would be OK, that God
said I would walk again."

It's a belief that the Dickersons hold tightly. In 1992, they learned her
spinal cord was still intact but was swollen at the injury site, not severed
or shriveled like they thought. "We believe God's going to heal me,"
Dickerson said.

In the months and years that have followed, with the care of her family and
rehabilitation, Dickerson has become stronger and is able to do things for
herself for hours at a time. After an aide comes in to prepare her for the
day, she writes on her laptop computer, reads a book or talks on the
telephone with the help of her lifeline - a stick on the end of her right
hand splint.

"God's really done a work on me," Dickerson said. "I was a new Christian
when I had the wreck, and now I'm more able to support him. I love to tell
people how good God is.

"Our lives are normal. There are some bad days, but I'd have those without
the wheelchair. We don't think about the accident every day."

So cutting her hair to donate it to a child was nothing for her. "Hair
always grows back," she said. "After going through something that traumatic,
doing something for others is a real plus.

"Many people made sacrifices for me when I had the accident. We were
$330,000 in debt, and it was paid off in a few months because people's love,
finances and prayer brought us through."
# # #
This story was adapted from a longer one written by Terra Temple, features
editor for the State Gazette newspaper in Dyersburg, Tenn. The article was
used with permission.

Editors, if your style permits, you may note: For more information about
Locks of Love, call (888) 896-1588 or visit www.locksoflove.org on the World
Wide Web.

*************************************
United Methodist News Service
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