Promises are made to keep and there was no way Joshua Gentry was going to break his.
“It’s a good deed and good deeds always help people,” he explained.
At just 11 years old, Gentry had a brain bleed. Doctors weren’t even sure he would make it through the night.
After beating the odds, it was his time to give back.
“We spent about a month in the hospital and saw all the little kids with no hair and hooked up to an IV,” Karey DeRose, Joshua’s mom, explained. “Hearing some of the back stories on those kids he said, ‘you know mom, I can probably make a difference.'”
Gentry decided he wanted to help other children, so he grew his hair long enough to donate to kids battling cancer.
It took a long time, but with his mom by his side, they did it together.
“We sat down and I told him if he could get to the 12 inches that he needed, I too would cut mine,” DeRose said.
Three years later, the day finally came and the now 14-year-old was ready for his haircut.
Gentry was able to donate 11 ponytails to “Wigs for Kids” and his mom was able to donate 6 to “Locks of Love.”
“You never know, you could change somebody’s life and that person could change someone else’s life,” Gentry told us.
Gentry is now getting used to his short hair. He realizes there’s a lot of it gone, but he also knows he’s helped a lot of lives.