Yesterday, we visited the Little Princess Trust, a charity which gives hair and hope to children with cancer. We were hosted by Phil Brace the CEO and Wendy Tarplee-Morris the Director of Service and Impact and Co-Founder at the Little Princess Trust.
The charity was started in 2006 by Wendy and Simon the parents of Hannah Tarplee. They started the charity after their daughter Hannah was diagnosed with a Wilms tumour and lost her hair. They saw first-hand how hard it was to find a wig and the positive effect it had on Hannah when they managed to find one. Sadly, Hannah passed away.
Wendy and Simon thought a fitting tribute would be to launch a charity to provide real hair wigs for children and young people. The charity has gone on to provide more than 14,000 wigs to children and young people with hair loss. And, also invested £20 million in ground-breaking childhood cancer research, helping children now and into the future too.
Phil and Wendy were kind enough to show us around the charity and its buildings. On the tour it became clear just how innovative the work of the charity is. The journey begins when people donate their hair to the charity. The visit was a good reminder of what we found in The Big Ask, the largest-ever survey of children and young people, this generation wanted to help their peers, are fair minded and socially-conscious, and want to create a ‘better world’. This is clear from children and young people across the country and the world choosing to donate their hair to so that it can be used to create wigs for those who need them. These wigs are perfect for children and young people and their specific needs. They come in different sizes, colours, and lengths – and you can see how they have an amazingly positive impact on recipients!
The passion of Wendy and Phil, all the team and volunteers at the charity shone through and we would like to thank everyone for showing us around.
You can read more about the charity here.