‘Crop a cop’ raises funds, awareness of girl’s cancer
June 6th, 2007
Madisyn Jenkins, just shy of 4 years old, is fighting leukemia, and the treatments that began on May 22 to help her get well will eventually cost her the full head of strawberry-blonde hair that billows with every active moment.
On May 17, however, before those heavy-duty treatments, she could be seen chasing her brother Mason, 5, around several chairs set up at the front of the Polk County Courthouse.
That’s where all manner of law enforcement personnel, firefighters and dispatch-center employees were busy getting their heads shaved in solidarity with Madisyn’s plight and to raise money to help in her struggle to get well.
Polk County Sheriff Bob Wolfe’s well-coiffed, close-cropped silver hair was cropped even closer; Sheriff’s Lt. Jeff Van Laanen’s sparse-to-begin-with locks became non-existent; and parole and probation officer Katie Newman made the ultimate sacrifice of her shoulder-length hair to be one with the post-May 22 Madisyn.
Madisyn did the honors on the head of her father, Sheriff’s Detective Tyrone Jenkins, while being held by her mother, Kim.
“We got five donations the first day Sheriff Wolfe agreed to do this,” Van Laanen said. “His participation has been a great boost to the fundraiser.”
The little girl was afflicted with acute lymphoblastic leukemia — one of the more treatable types of the disease — the week in November 2006 that Tyrone and Kim decided to have Kim become a stay-at-home mom.
“Then it was on and off to doctors until the diagnosis was made,” Tyrone said. “The prognosis is very positive and it’s been a neat experience to see how kids are so resilient when these sorts of things happen.”
Tyrone has had to take only two weeks off since the diagnosis, since Kim could now stay home to be with Madisyn and Mason. He said he can take any time off he needs, and his insurance “has covered a huge amount of her treatments (at Doernbecher’s Children’s Hospital in Portland)” — which totaled about $40,000 as of mid-May.
Katie Newman was sanguine about the experience of having her hair cut off for the cause.
“I have a 13-month-old son and I think deciding to have my head shaved to raise money for a child came from a combination of having a child of my own and understanding the pain that family (the Jenkinses) is going through,” she said.
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She had thought to herself that if she could raise $500, she might indeed have her head shaved, “but when it went to $1,000, then to $1,500, I thought, ‘whoa, this is great.’ ” She ended up raising $1,800.
“I started realizing how much money people were willing to pay me to go bald, and that convinced me. I think it was important for (Madisyn) to see a woman do that.”
She wrote to Madisyn in the little girl’s online guest book that she had been “trying this bald thing out for a few days and ya know what!? It’s not that bad … getting ready in the morning is a breeze … and it grows back, too!”
Her husband, Polk County Sheriff’s Deputy Dustin Newman, also had his head shaved. “Everyone now just calls us the bald couple,” Katie Newman laughed.
A second woman — Nancy Law, office manager of the Polk County Sheriff’s Office — held a raffle of sorts, telling people she would either get her head shaved or not, depending on which option they wanted their pledge money to go to.
“I got $700 from those who wanted me to keep my hair, and $297 from those who wanted me shaved,” she said. “But they had me guessing the whole way as to how it would go.”
“The Crop a Cop event also will show Madisyn she is not alone in learning about what it means to lose her hair, and it raises the level of cancer awareness in general,” he said.
An initial set of treatments early in the year did not affect Madisyn’s health or result in much hair loss, but the Jenkins family hopes the weekly treatments from May 22 through July 1 that will cause the hair loss also will be enough to put her disease into remission.
“I would really like to thank everyone for their support,” Tyrone said. “I feel I am a better person for their generosity.”
He has pledged to continue supporting Doernbecher’s in the future, even when Madisyn is healthy again, saying he believes in their mission and their work.
Entry Filed under: Hair Loss News
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