If a change is as good as a holiday, then Thornlie Senior High School head girl Kayla Cornish won’t need to go on vacation for a long time after shaving her head last week as part of the school’s first World’s Greatest Shave fundraising effort.
The day was spearheaded by Ms Cornish, who said supporting the Leukaemia Foundation and Australians suffering from blood cancer was something she had long intended to do.
“I’ve always loved my hair, it’s been a big thing for me but I realised that there’s a lot of people who don’t get a choice when they lose their hair and it’s probably as beautiful as I think mine was, probably more,” she said.
“I got onto the website and worked out you could do it as a school so I went to Mr Doyle, who is our Student Council leader, he said we could probably do it so then I went to the principal, Mrs McDonald, I got her approval and then I went about getting a team together.”
With her team assembled, Kayla and five of her friends took the plunge and shaved their heads, along with five other friends who had their hair cut, with all the discarded hair being donated to the Leukaemia Foundation to make wigs.
In a sign of the support she had, Kayla managed to raise $3060 dollars, bringing her team’s total to $5200 dollars – and she is just starting to get used to the new hairstyle.
“It’s a bit different but kind of nice, I’ve got to the stage where I wake up in the morning and remember it’s shaved.
“That’s probably the biggest difference actually, the time it takes me to get ready in the morning, I get up and get changed and I’m basically done.
“I think I’ll keep it for summer, because my hair is usually very hot in summer so that will be a nice change.”
Principal Donna McDonald said the success of the event was a credit to Kayla and her leadership.
“She’s an outstanding young leader, she has the ability to capture the voice of the students,” she said.
“After this initiative we will look to make World’s Greatest Shave a part of the school calendar and hopefully a successful part of the school’s culture.”
