A MAN bravely shaved his head and had his legs waxed for charity to give a young deaf girl the chance to hear again.
For this to happen, one-year-old Evie Small will have to fly to Italy for an operation where a tiny device will be implanted into the actual brain stem where hearing is processed.
If implanted early enough, a child with no hearing can access sounds, enough to allow that child to be able to understand speech with lip reading and in some cases even without lip reading. Only a handful of specialist surgeons worldwide are able to perform the operation, so her family must raise £60,000.
Gavin Dutton, of Gloucester Way, Chichester, decided that if he could raise more than £150 he would shave his head, and if he raised more than £250 he would have his legs waxed, all in aid of Evie’s operation.
Just one week before the deadline, only £20 had been raised, so not wanting to let him get off lightly, colleague Nadine Hermon emailed 8,000 of their contacts. Within hours £600 had been donated.
Creations in South Street, Chichester offered its help to provide the service for free on July 27.
When asked if he would be back in the beauty chair again, Mr Dutton said: “Definitely not. I’ll be growing my hair back. But thank you so much to Creations for joining forces with us to raise money for Evie.”
Mr Dutton works for Checkatrade, and the company has undertaken dressing down days, zumbathons and cake-making days to raise money. So far it has raised more than £2,500 for Evie.