WHEN he first heard about young cancer patients needing donated hair for wigs, 10-year-old Ben Burger’s mind was made up about what he could do with his long hair.

“Because if we just go for (an) ordinary haircut … it will just go into a bin,” he said.

“(Instead) there’s a place it’s actually going to be used for something and that’s Wigs4Kids and Ella Wigmakers.

“It’s going to help some children.”

He said he had been growing his hair “for two years” and expected having shorter hair would be easier to live with and potentially finally better in comparison with his family’s.

“Everybody else (in my family) has volume on their hair but mine just goes flat like a blanket over my head,” Ben said.

Kids with Cancer Foundation has partnered with Ella Wigmakers on the Central Coast in NSW to make sure any donated hair with the Wigs4Kids campaign is used in Australia.

Ella Wigmakers owner, Sandra Buchan has been honing her craft for about 31 years and said they “average about 50 parcels a week” which gives her and her staff a wide range of hair types to work with.

Ms Buchan said it was “win for both the foundation and for myself” to do such important work for young cancer patients, but she identified a shortage of hair types she receives.

“The rarest hair is white hair and long blonde hair,” she said.

With each wig taking between 30 and 60 hours to make – “really long hair is quite challenging to knot” - fundraising to cover this specialised work is an ongoing issue and the Wigs 4 Kids campaign directly supports the families and the sick kids and builds awareness about childhood cancer and some of the effects of cancer treatments as well.

Ben’s mother, Beth said he had “handled his (long) hair pretty well” but it had started bothering him when running and she was fine with seeing his hair get trimmed.

“I think I have kids with the longest hair in town,” she quipped.

The process to cut the hair was quite involved with Fringe Benefits hairdresser, Tim Cogger helping out after Beth had separated the hair into six ponytails.

For the wigs, the hair needed to be a minimum length of 20cm with each ponytail tied with elastic bands down its length.

Tim said he had done a hair donation cut a few times before and was happy to accommodate the more involved preparation, especially as in this case Ben loved his new haircut.

“This is what I love about my job - changing the look of people,” Tim said.

Once the hair was cut, Ben was in agreement.

“It looks really cool,” he said.

“I love this new look, more than the previous one.

“It was an excuse to get a new beanie to keep my head warm in the evening at running club.”