A nurse's heart is not just the heart of someone who has skills. It's the heart of someone who knows how to care for people.
Many people understand that hair loss is a common side effect of chemotherapy. However, it is a lesser-known fact that chemotherapy also causes neuropathy, a condition that makes areas of the body (like the scalp) very sensitive. As such, many chemo patients forgo wearing traditional wigs as they irritate delicate scalps.
Holly Christensen (BS ‘06), a BYU College of Nursing graduate and founder of The Magic Yarn Project, has spent more than a decade addressing this issue with an alternative, community-powered solution: whimsical yarn-based wigs of various styles and colors, all hand-crafted by volunteers.
The Magic Yarn Project started about 11 years ago with just one individual recipient—Lily, the young daughter of BYU nursing classmate Rachel Mecham (BS ‘06). Holly was working as a nurse at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, TX when she learned that Lily had developed cancer. Wanting to help, Holly reconnected with Rachel to check in and offer advice based on what she had learned in the cancer unit.
Holly wanted to do more than offer kind words, so she set to work crocheting a long ‘Rapunzel’ wig for Lily and sent it in the mail. Little Lily was ecstatic! When she went back to the hospital with her wonderful wig, the concept caught fire—every child in the unit wanted one! Seeing that the wigs could be a hit, she decided to produce more and took to social media to request materials.
“I went on Facebook to ask my local friends for yarn donations, and that kind of went viral!” Holly enthused. What started as yarn donations became volunteer projects, and soon, numerous volunteers had rallied around the Magic Yarn cause.
The organization grew and grew, and now there are members across the U.S. and even internationally. The Magic Yarn Project has donated over 80,000 wigs across 53 countries, all for free. Plus, they are still completely volunteer-based, and many organization leaders are also full-time parents and employees elsewhere.
BYU College of Nursing has partnered with The Magic Yarn Project to host several “wig workshops.” The most recent workshop on March 21 saw an estimated 375 volunteers, or “Magic Makers,” come together to assemble and package wigs.
“I think it’s so great that something as small as one person’s battle with cancer could spark this nonprofit that blesses so many children and…volunteers,” said Rachel, who attended and spoke at the March event.
Holly emphasized that The Magic Yarn Project strives to impact the Magic Makers just as much as the children it serves.
“Our mission is twofold. We want to bring magic to the lives of children battling cancer, but also inspire volunteerism to help make a difference,” she said. While Holly noted that the organization could hire a group to fabricate the wigs, she affirmed that “involving volunteers is really special.”
She explained the breadth of their volunteer corps: “We've had young men come and make beautiful wigs. We've had grandmas and grandpas and people of all ages and abilities and backgrounds come and make wigs, and they enjoy it so much, because it's such a personal thing to do for someone who has cancer.”
At the recent BYU event, volunteers gathered in the Wilkinson Center Ballroom to assemble many different types of wigs. They began with a base cap in styles ranging from Ariel and Rapunzel to Jack Sparrow, then added yarn “hair” by threading strands through one by one. Finally, they bound the wig with glue and added special embellishments with the help of an official Magic Yarn representative.
Magic Makers talked and laughed among themselves as they wove. Some came as families or friends, and many left having formed new friendships. When they finished their wigs, the volunteers personalized them by taking a polaroid photo with their creation, signing a card, and placing both in gift bags with the wigs. The packages were then ready for distribution to children in need.
Several BYU College of Nursing students were in attendance, and they shared their experience:
Dallin Gordon (sixth-semester) said he initially decided to volunteer in order to get time toward his required service hours. However, the experience was much more substantial than simply checking a box.
“Yesterday during the training, [the directors] shared a story about giving the wigs to people and the different experiences they had, and I thought ‘Oh my gosh, that’s such a magical thing, that these kids who have been through so much get the chance to feel like a kid again and feel like their peers,” he remarked.
Fellow student Ellie Campbell shared how the experience deepened her understanding of the struggle cancer patients face:
“Something I didn’t realize is that, for little kids going through chemo and cancer treatment, it affects their skin…their head is so sensitive that they can’t really have a regular wig, which I didn’t realize,” she observed. “That was really cool to learn and realize how big of a difference [The Magic Yarn Project] makes.”
In pondering how her BYU experience shaped Magic Yarn, Holly remembered the words of Catherine Coverston, a notoriously tough nursing professor, who taught her an important lesson about becoming well-rounded.
“[Professor Coverston] stopped one of her lectures one day, and she just said, ‘how many of you have ever taken Humanities, [or are] fulfilling your Humanities requirement right now?’...Now, I know a lot of you are probably very focused on this [nursing course]...but don't you dare neglect your Humanities class or your other studies.’”
Holly continued Professor Coverston’s counsel: “Learning more about the world and learning more about people in the world, the history, the arts, make you a better nurse…A nurse's heart is not just the heart of someone who has skills. It's the heart of someone who knows how to care for people.”
Though Holly is not “starting IVs,” she believes she is doing what Professor Coverston had encouraged her to by caring for the patient beyond providing physical remedies. She drove home the idea that the wigs are far more than physical tools to make children feel normal—they become an important and bright part of each child’s life, and their family’s life by extension.
She shared a tender anecdote about one young girl who was home on hospice when she received her “Moana” wig. The child was ecstatic, and she would dance with the wig and a full Moana costume. She tragically passed away shortly after those joyful moments, and her family used a photo of her in the wig on her memorial service program.
“That's how much [the wig] meant,” said Holly. “It didn't heal her...but it shows the power of a healing moment for the family.”
As the BYU wig workshop ended, volunteers were all smiles. They, like many other Magic Makers, had played a role in making life more magical for individual children around the world.
Learn more about volunteer and giving opportunities with The Magic Yarn Project.