Salon Supports Cancer Research

Tanya Chiesa gets her pink streak courtesy of Sheri Hogan while staff members Lindsay Diasparra (left), Laura Biondi and Tiffany Buitrago (right) offer their support at the Cosmopolitan Salon in Southeast last week. ERIC GROSS Laura Biondi’s two sisters had both been diagnosed with breast cancer. The office manager of the Cosmopolitan Salon, located at the Clock Tower Commons in Southeast, approached her boss about doing a fund raiser and Sheri Hogan jumped at the idea.

That was last year, when the beauty parlor raised $800 by adding pink streaks to hairdos, showing support for the American Cancer Society’s fight against breast cancer.

Biondi said due to the support of the pink streak project in 2008, Cosmopolitan Salon expanded the program this year, when two stylists offered the service on Wednesday and Saturday.

Last week the program officially ended and the receipts were tabulated—$ 1,700 raised for what Biondi described as the “good cause. Breast cancer affects everyone. This is a small way for everyone to get involved in the fight against cancer. The average middle school or high school child can’t donate to the American Cancer Society on her own. The pink hair project was popular and besides, it’s for a great foundation.”

Sheri told the COURIeR she decided to renew the pink hair project because “every family in Putnam County has in some way, shape, or form been affected by cancer. For us, it’s a personal cause and I’ll do whatever I can to raise the awareness of this insidious disease and raise money at the same time.”

Cosmopolitan hair stylists Lindsay Diasparra, Tanya Chiesa, Tiffany Buitrago, and Sheri Hogan placed the pink streaks in 113 women’s hair during the special project.

Hogan said she was already looking forward to next year: “We doubled the amount raised in 2009. Why can’t we double it again in 2010?”