14-Year-Old Sheds Tresses for Charity

Jerry Brown stood in Great Clips Haircut Salon in Trinity and saw his son transformed.

It was Wednesday, June 15, and Jerry Brown Jr. was getting first haircut. The 14-year-old had grown his hair out since he was born, and now he was donating most of it to Locks of Love, a nonprofit that donates hairpieces to financially disadvantaged children and teenagers who are experiencing long-term medical hair loss.

Family, friends and members of the media gathered to watch store manager Jackie Fuller cut 23-inch strands of hair from Jerry’s head.

“He looks older,” said Jerry Brown Sr., a firefighter with station 30 of Pasco County Fire Rescue who lives with his son and wife in Sunset Lakes. “He looks like a little man.”

After his cut Wednesday afternoon, a shorter-haired Jerry ran his hands over his head. The long curls that pillowed out behind him when he lay down to sleep were gone.

When they saw those long locks, people would occassionally call him a girl, especially when he was younger. Sometimes it was a mistake. Sometimes it was mean-spirited.

"Sometimes people just see the he hair and don't see anything else," Jerry Brown Sr. said.

The most memorable occasion was when a teacher at the beginning of the last school year “looked at me straight in the face and thought I was a girl,” Jerry Jr. said.

Now, Jerry jr. doesn’t have to go through the 10-minute routine of managing his hair in the morning. He had to wear it in braids at school and tie it back when fighting in karate tournaments.

Long hair is part of the Brown heritage. Jerry Jr.'s father was raised in Oklahoma and is descended from a full-blooded Cherokee mother and a partial Cherokee father. He grew his hair long. So did Jerry’s paternal grandmother.

Jerry Jr, was interested in his Cherokee heritage from a very young age and wanted to honor it. He chose to grow his hair out. His parents respected his wishes.

Jerry Brown Sr. started losing his hair and shaved it off when Jerry was in fifth grade. He saved his 18-inch braid to donate it to Locks of Love when Jerry.

Jerry has attended Genesis Schools, where there is a dress code, since he was 3.  His mother, Lisa Brown, said the family had to provide the private school with a letter proving Jerry’s heritage to get them to allow his long hair.

Now that he’s cut it, they won’t let him grow it out again, Lisa Brown said.

Great Clips will send Jerry's hair and his father’s braid to Locks of Love.

But not all the shorn hair will be sent away. Lisa Brown is keeping a piece of Jerry’s childhood.

“I need to have just one small string, “ she said as Fuller was cutting Jerry’s hair. She was given a ponytail.