Youngsters a haircut above

NEWPORT BEACH ? In 2004, Harrison Brown spent eight weeks at a summer camp in New York. When he returned home, he realized that his hair had grown a bit longer.

Over the next two years, it kept on growing. Armed with conditioner, gel and a free spirit, the Newport Harbor High School senior watched his curly hair descend to his shoulders.

On Wednesday afternoon, the hair finally descended to the barber’s floor at Taylor & Robert Hair Dressers. But it went to a worthy cause.

Harrison was one of at least two Newport Beach young people to donate hair to Locks of Love, a nonprofit organization that provides wigs for children.

“I just hadn’t gotten it cut in a while, and I thought it looked cool longer,” said Harrison, 18, who will graduate today. “So I kept growing it, and that sort of materialized as I went along.”

Across town on Wednesday, Valentina Faubion, a fifth-grader at Mariners Christian School, sat in the Images Salon and surrendered her own mane. Valentina, 10, grew her curly brown hair out for six months in preparation for giving it to Locks of Love.

She was inspired to do it several years ago at Children’s Hospital of Orange County, when she shared an elevator with a bald girl her age.

Even though Valentina had always worn her hair long, she was moved to support the cause.

“I know that it’s going to someone who needs hair, and my hair will always grow back,” she said. “God gave me this hair so I could bless someone else with it.”

Locks of Love, based in Lake Worth, Fla., helps low-income children who have lost their hair for any medical reason. To apply for a hairpiece, children must send letters of recommendation along with photos of themselves without their hair.

Valentina’s mother, Paddi Faubion, said her daughter’s “Goldilocks hair” had been a source of family pride for several years. dpt.22-locks-2-BPhotoInfo1U1S7LM020060622j18pdjncCHRISTOPHER WAGNER / DAILY PILOT(LA)Harrison Brown and Valentina Faubion hold locks of hair they had cut to be donated to needy young people.