*After watching a video on Facebook about a girl with cancer who had lost her hair to chemotherapy, 8-year-old Thomas Moore of Rockville, Maryland decided he would begin growing out his own hair for her to use as a wig. The story of his two-year commitment is melting the Internet after pics and video of his hair finally being cut this month were posted with pride by his family…and quickly went viral.
According to BuzzFeed, Moore’s mother, Angie Pulos, was watching a FB video on Kyssi Andrews, a girl who was battling cancer and had lost all of her hair. Thomas’s aunt, 24-year-old Amber Ray, told BuzzFeed that Pulos had then explained what cancer was and how chemotherapy can cause hair to fall out.
That’s when Moore decided he wanted to help Kyssi. He came up with the idea to grow his hair out and give it to the girl, Ray said.
He had no predetermined end date in mind for the hair growth. He “just wanted it to be long enough to make the girl feel happy,” Ray said.
So Thomas began avoiding haircuts in 2014.
During the growing out process, Moore’s hair had to be cornrowed, which hurt his head, his aunt Amber Ray told Buzzfeed. He almost gave up, but when he got discouraged, they would “re-focus on the reason for growing it.”
When it was time to finally cut it all off this month, Moore – now 10 – actually had enough hair to make three wigs. The strands measured nearly 17 inches from root to tip.
His story was shared on Twitter by his aunt, Amber Ray. Her set of before-and-after photos have gone viral, with over 57,000 retweets at last count.
my nephew grew his hair out for two years to donate to kids with cancer ? pic.twitter.com/YuamNNcMEI
— amber lynne (@storkpatrol) September 11, 2016
“I think it’s really fantastic that he felt like he could do something so selfless to help somebody else so much,” his mother Angie Pulos told NBC.
Moore said he has to readjust to being in school without the hair he was famous for, but it was all worth it in the end.
Watch NBC4’s report on Moore below:
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