For five years, David Church took the ridicule often dished out to men with long hair.
But he says when you're doing it from the heart it's not so bad.
Church, 23, Milton, has been growing his hair for all those years to donate it to young cancer patients, via Locks of Love. He says it was a very serious mission he chose to make a difference in the world. "You have to be the change if you want it to be better," he shares. "It's really been a life's goal for me."
Locks-of-Love is an organization that collects human hair to make hairpieces for young patients of illnesses or treatments that cause the loss of hair. Church says he started thinking about if after seeing so many people on television and music videos who were suffering hair loss.
"Before I decided to do this, I never had long hair," he says. "I went on line to find a place to donate and I looked at other places, but they all referred back to Locks-of-Love."
Church says he went to Snip n' Clip in Pace to do the deed. After cutting his hair, he obtained an address to mail the hair into the organization.
He says he's probably going to do it again, despite the prejudices he faced while he undertook his task.
"People treated me poorly with long hair," he says. "If they knew, they would be biting their tongue."
He says guys at work teased him, especially in the summer when it naturally turned blonde.
"It was kind of feminine," he laughs.
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: Man grows hair for 5 years for Locks of Love