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HIGHTSTOWN: Haircut is her way of helping kids in need

By Doug Carman, Staff Writer
   HIGHTSTOWN — Jackie Eldridge’s hair reaches all the way down to her navel, but she’s going to have it cut off at her chin level next Saturday. The 7-year-old first-grader at the Grace Norton Rogers School has a little more in mind than a change of fashion, however.
   ”I want to cut it for the children with cancer,” Jackie said. “I’m gonna make a wig out of it.”
   Jackie, whose family lives on Hutchinson Street, said she is raising money and donating her hair to give help to someone who needs it. Or rather, she is giving back some help after she was on the receiving end.
   Her father, Mason Eldridge, said Jackie was taken to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia for a heart operation when she was 2½ years old. She was diagnosed with having a patent ductus arteriosus, a heart condition where the normally occurring shunt, or passage, connecting the aorta to the pulmonary artery feeding blood to the lungs fails to close after birth, causing an improper blood flow, difficulty breathing and congestive heart failure if left untreated after a few years.
   Mr. Eldridge and his wife, Donna, said the operation, which involved putting a platinum plug in the unsealed shunt, treated Jackie and will allow her to now live a normal life.
   Mr. Eldridge said his motorcycle club, the World Class Riders, participated in a fundraiser for cancer patients for a number of years where some of the bikers would raise money and donate it to St. Baldrick’s Foundation for cancer research. During this year’s event, he said his daughter decided she would help give someone in need the chance at life that she was given.
   ”This has been done every year,” Mr. Eldridge said. “Without prompting, she wanted to donate her hair.”
   Jackie’s hair will go to a separate charity, Wigs for Kids, Ms. Eldridge said.
   Jackie said she had gone door-to-door with her two sisters and a friend with a letter, asking for donations to help out. She also tried giving some donors the option of taking either a stuffed animal or some chocolates as a “thank-you” for the contributions.
   ”And only one person took a stuffed animal,” Jackie added with a pout.
   Ms. Eldridge said that as of Wednesday evening, the door-to-door campaign and their Web page had collected more than $800.
   Mr. Eldridge said their goal was $1,000, though they were certainly accepting donations beyond that.
   Jackie’s sister Kaitlyn, 9, who helped collect the money, said she thought highly of what Jackie was doing.
   ”I am very proud that she would do this,” Kaitlyn said.
   Al Ari, a road captain with World Class Riders and the other member of the two-person team representing the motorcycle club and growing his hair out for the March 12 donation, said he heard about Jackie’s story through Mr. Eldridge. She’s outdoing him in the fundraising, though by Wednesday they had raised more than $1,200 together, he said.
   Jackie wanted to embrace the child who would eventually have her hair. She said that if she meets that person, she’ll say “that I did this just for you.”
   ”Then I would pat them on the back and hug them, and then I would wish them good luck. Then I would say, ‘Here’s your hair, my little fellow,” Jackie said, as Ms. Eldridge laughed.
   ”I think it’s going to a girl,” Ms. Eldridge told Jackie.
   Jackie will join several others between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. March 12 at Amalfi’s, 146 Lawrenceville-Pennington Road in Lawrence, to have her hair cut for donation.
   To make a monetary donation to St. Baldrick’s on behalf of Jackie Eldridge and the World Class Riders, visit www.stbaldricks.org/teams/mypage/teamid/70067.