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PASS CHRISTIAN — There was a field of pink at the Boys & Girls Club on Saturday morning — pink ribbons, pink wigs, pink sweats, pink boas, pink masks, pink balloons — all in support of the Pink Heart Funds, a local charity that provides wigs to adults and children with cancer.
Hundreds of walkers, as well as a handful of runners and pint-sized wagon and stroller riders, came out on a beautiful autumn morning for the third annual Pink Heart Funds Walk. Some were cancer survivors, some walked with a loved one who had survived cancer, some walked in memory and some just walked in support. The event was sponsored by the Keystone and Torch Clubs of the Boys & Girls Club Qatar Center at Pass Christian.
Keystone and Torch are leadership programs for Boys & Girls Club members.
Joshua Womble, a Keystone Club member and eighth-grader at Pass Christian Middle School, said the club wanted to help others. He had a cousin with cancer.
“I wanted to give back,” he said.
Keystone Club members presented Pink Heart Funds founder JoAn Niceley of Long Beach — herself dressed in a pink cape — with a check for $6,500 raised by the event. The funds are used to provide free wigs to adults and children with cancer, as well as breast prosthetics and lymphadema sleeves to those who need them, at no cost.
Pink Heart Funds also collects hair through its “Ponytail Club” and uses them to create wigs. The group collects the hair, which should be at least six inches long, and puts it in the ponytail “stable,” where volunteers sort it by color and length, Niceley explained to participants during a program after the walk. Once 1,000 ponytails are collected, the hair is sent to a manufacturer in New York, who turns them into 90 wigs. This brings the cost of the wigs down to $200 each; otherwise, Niceley said, they would cost around $500 a piece.
One of the ponytails donated in June of this year was from Lexie Van Stone, a student at North Woolmarket Elementary. Lexie’s father, Greg, is director of food and beverage at the Beau Rivage. When Van Stone won the Shining Star Award from MGM Mirage, the Beau’s parent company, for his community volunteer efforts, he was given $1,000 to give to the charity of his choice. He remembered the impact of that donation, he explained during the program yesterday, and decided to give the grant to Pink Heart Funds, “from my heart to yours,” he said as he gave Niceley the check.
So far this year, Pink Heart Funds has given away about 300 wigs to women, four to men and more than 150 wigs to children. Niceley, who is a hairstylist, has custom-designed a wig especially for children with cancer, which is where all the ponytail donations are going, she said.
The organization has also given away close to 125 breast prostheses this year.
Demand for wigs and other help has increased as word about Pink Heart Funds has spread, she said, which is why this year’s walk was the biggest one so far, with a silent auction of children’s art, a bouncy castle, music, massages by students from Blue Cliff College and more.
For Minna Doyle of Pass Christian, the event was also about increasing awareness and letting folks know there is life after cancer.
“I am a three-year breast cancer survivor, and God has been good,” she said. Doyle, 66, walks at least two miles every day, and she exercises regularly. She even jogged most of the one-mile Pink Heart Funds walk.
Doyle, a retired nurse, discovered her cancer herself and still does self-exams religiously. She encourages others, young and older, to do so as well.
“I think this is a wonderful event because it makes people more aware that they should take care of themselves, and that you can live with cancer,” she said after the walk, surrounded by the sea of pink and the hubbub of enthusiastic walkers and volunteers. “There is life after a cancer diagnosis.”
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