Lizzie’s Shave for Leukaemia

ON Friday at the Scone Grammar School 11 year old Lizzie Young’s eighteen month quest to help the Leukaemia Foundation finished with her shaving her head for the cause.

Lizzie’s proud mum Anthea Shoesmith supported her through the journey to raise over $4500 so far.

Lizzie Young at the Scone Gammar School before the shave.

“She decided about 18 months ago she would like to raise some money for the worlds greatest shave for the Leukaemia Foundation, earlier in the year when we started the conversation again she informed me that she had been growing her hair specifically so that she could donate that to Variety,” Anthea Shoesmith said.

“I measured her pony tails on Friday when I was tying them up to be chopped off and they were 42 centimeters long.

“It was quite a personal journey, Lizzie’s cousin who she never met passed away at the age of seven before Lizzie was born and her cousin is still very much part of family conversation and Lizzie has always felt strongly about childhood illnesses, she is quite a sensitive little girl and obviously thinks about her cousin who she never met a lot.

“I am incredibly proud, I think I was more emotional than her on the day, she is a very determined young kid and has really always had this beautiful sense of social justice and really deeply cares that everybody in the world should get a fair go.

Lizzie Young after the shave.

“Lizzie has done the campaigning herself, she walked into just about every business in town with me behind her but she did the talking…. we are really appreciative of all the support around town, everybody was really generous and really supportive, that’s a lovely small town feel,” said Anthea Shoesmith.

Lizzie chose the head shave to donate in the way of head shaving to make a statement and took a friend along on the journey as well.

“All the other ways are just a bit quiet like so I thought if I shave my head then everyone will know that I’ve done it,” Lizzie young said.

“My Aunty Ally cut my hair, she’s hairdresser.. I donated it to the Variety people, they make wigs out of it.

“I had a friend that did it with me as well named Tommy Burnett, he started to look like a pom pom,

“It’s a bit chilly, I have got shorter hair than my dad so it’s a bit weird,” said Lizzie Young.