Positivity: Former Miss Canada shaves head for charity

From Alberta (HT Good News Blog):

UPDATED: 2007-03-30 17:35:23 MST

So what could possibly convince a former Miss Canada to forgo 52-plus centimetres of flowing dark hair for a shaved dome?

The answer is a good cause, at least for 1992 Miss Canada pageant winner Nicole Dunsdon, who got a buzz from charity today after going under the shears to raise funds for the Kids Cancer Care Foundation of Alberta.

“I’m normally kind of a short bob-sort of girl anyway,” laughed Dunsdon, 36, one of 16 people who shed their locks on behalf of the KCCFA at Elbow Park School.

The school, located at 721 38 Ave. S.W., raised a grand total of $44,000 for the cause, with 12 students and four parents also sidling up to the barber’s chair.

KCCFA event coordinator Sara Foster said the money will help the foundation send families to camps and assist in research efforts dedicated to tackling childhood cancer.

“This amount of money will do absolute wonders for the kids, and also for their siblings and their parents,” she said.

For Dunsdon, the cause has a personal ring to it, considering she was mistakenly diagnosed with a potentially cancerous tumour as a child.

“I don’t think anyone spends time thinking about a potential battle with cancer and is left unchanged by it,” she said.

Dunsdon’s resolve to battle cancer was only resolved by the time she turned 12, when she watched her grandmother lose her hair, her breast, and ultimately her life, to the disease.

“Rather than asking a hair donor, ‘Why would you?’, the question really is ‘Why wouldn’t you?’” said Dunsdon, whose head shaving raised $10,000 for the KCCFA.