He looked more nervous than if he were standing at the edge of a superpipe, but that didn’t stop Shaun White from taking a serious risk for a good cause.
The Olympian snowboarder recently snipped off his signature red tresses for Locks for Love, a charity that provides wigs to underprivileged children experiencing long-term medical hair loss.
“I have been thinking about this for a while, but it’s for a good cause, so I’m going to do it,” White said of the haircut in a video he posted to YouTube. “Somebody needs it more than I do.”
While this was probably the first charity initiative that’s led White to feel like he was “panicking,” this isn’t the first time the famed snowboarder has taken a public stand for an important cause.
White is a long-time supporter of the Tony Hawk Foundation, a nonprofit that focuses on developing skate parks in low-income communities. The two-time gold medalist made an appearance at an October fundraiser for the organization and donated an autographed Burton snowboard, which helped raise $979,000, according to the foundation's website.
White also put his name behind a petition last month, asking the town of Bolton, Conn., to build a skate park.
“It’s important to give every kid out there the opportunity, something to do, you know what I mean?” White said in a video posted to Change.org. “[Skate parks were] my social outlet, I made friends."
White also joins a host of other celebrities who have donated their hair to Locks of Love, including Snooki and Penn & Teller's Penn Jillette.
(Hat tip: BuzzFeed)
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