Sarah’s Lockdown Haircut

Courageous Sarah Robinson, a consultant at Lane Clark & Peacock LLP in Winchester, is not new to the idea of cutting her hair for charity! She did a similar challenge three years ago, having 20 inches cut off for the Little Princess and sharing the proceeds with them and Naomi House & Jacksplace. The challenge was such a success that she decided to do it again – only this time she enlisted her 7 year old neighbour to do the job!

Sarah was well prepared to have her hair cut into a pixie style hairdo, requested by Ava, but knowing that she wouldn’t be able to ask her colleagues in the office for donations because of lockdown, she didn’t want to settle for that. She wanted to raise the bar even higher by giving friends, family and colleagues targets to hit and the chance of influencing the outcome. Even so, she thought she would be quite safe and possibly reach grade 8 on the clippers - she didn’t expect it to go as short as it did!

We asked Sarah about her charity trim:

“The best thing about this pandemic has been the strengthening of the community - I got to know Ava’s family much more since lockdown. In one of our conversations, her mum mentioned Ava had helped trim her dad’s hair, and the idea formed from there.

“It’s certainly quite a drastic change, but the scissors stayed clear of my ears, so I’d count it as a success! I was actually quite impressed with the pixie cut stage of the haircut; Ava’s attention span faded out after 50 mins, at which point her 15 year old cousin took over. Ava’s mum had to show her how to use the clippers!

“We actually hit the £3,500 mark mid-stream, which enabled Ava to use clippers of any length. She had her heart set on a pixie cut, so she got going on that first, and then we let the viewers of the live stream dictate what happened next. There were a number of viewers keen on a mohawk, which we reached around 1hr 10 mins in, but then the donation to tip us over came in with a “SHAVE IT ALL” comment!”

Sarah became involved in the communities team at Lane Clark & Peacock three years ago, shortly after her last haircut, and helped out at the lively Lane Clark & Peacock party stop on the Naomi House & Jacksplace 21st anniversary Clarendon Way Walk in 2018. The team provided some light relief in the final few miles of the flagship fundraising event organised by the hospices.

The amazing staff from Lane Clark & Peacock have been supporting Naomi House for over 10 years through a huge number of fundraisers, and over the last three years, through their volunteering programme. They also started the LCP Foundation in 2019, which has provided match funding on their more recent events.

We asked Sarah what the support has been like from friends, family and colleagues. She told us:

“It’s been astonishing. I didn’t expect such amazing generosity, or the lovely comments about my new style. My team at work also arranged for everyone to wear hats to our Monday meeting in case I was feeling too self-conscious. We’re actually up to £3,870, plus the LCP Foundation will be matching the first £1,500 raised, so including GiftAid, it’s a total of over £6,000! I’m absolutely thrilled to have raised such a significant amount of money for four causes close to my heart.”

The funds raised from Sarah’s headshave will be split equally between four charities – Naomi House & Jacksplace, Solent Mind, ME Research UK and Trinity Winchester.

We’d like to thank Sarah and everyone at Lane Clark & Peacock for their continued inspiring support, we are so incredibly grateful for your generosity.