A new club was organized this past year at Coppell Middle School West.  It's called the "Pony Tail" Club.

Carol Brandt, an 8^th grade Language Arts teacher and Brynlea Taylor, a 7^th grade Language Arts teacher at Coppell Middle School West have had a successful year putting together The Ponytail Club, a club full of passionate girls committed to growing out their hair and cutting at least 8 inches off for cancer patients in need of wigs.

The club was mainly run by students with CMS West teachers acting as facilitators. This means, the students met quite often during, before, and after school to plan the endeavors.  Coming up with the majority of the ideas of how to organize and promote the club, these students took the initiative and made the Ponytail Club happen!  In middle school, image is everything to these kids and hair is everything to girls! The selflessness and heart that these children have shown is amazing! Over 75 students and teachers, gave up their ponytails for those cancer patients who lose their hair during chemo treatments.  It has started a world-wide "share your hair" epidemic!  Mockingbird Elementary has already decided to have a ponytail drive of their own, based on efforts at CMSW.

The Ponytail Club is the student-led part of "Pink Heart Fund", started by Joann Niceley in Mississippi 2 years ago. With our idea of starting a Ponytail Club here at West and do a drive for hair, it has encouraged Pink Heart Fund affiliate Angie Prince to contact wig companies in New York where there was an event to promote it, which resulted in the Susan G Komen fund to affiliate themselves with the Ponytail club, making it a national organization. We feel that Ponytail clubs will begin to pop up all over the world now thanks to the Coppell West endeavors!!

To reward the students and teachers for their kind acts, they had a huge celebration full of pink balloons, decorations, and cake. Angie Prince presented the girls with certificates, tee shirts, and gift bags. They also made a movie showing the experiences throughout the year. Teachers and students sharing their hair for one amazing cause! To some, it is just hair. To others it’s their feminine identity. To all who participated- thank you for sharing your hair and making a difference…one ponytail at a time.