Young Goldilocks cuts hair to raise money for Viks Rescue

Vicky McKay from Viks Rescue with cat Louie (left) and 10-year-old Mackenzie Meeuws just before she goes to get her money-raising haircut.

Ten-year-old Mackenzie Meeuws has been wanting a cat of her own for years, and while she still has to learn to keep her room clean for a little longer, that didn’t stop her from wanting to help Hastings-based Viks Rescue.

The Napier girl and her mum Jenny Meeuws have been following Vik’s Rescue on Facebook for a while now and the pair decided it would be such a good charity to help out, not only because it’s local but because they have seen all the amazing work the rescue is doing.

Jenny floated the idea that maybe a haircut could help raise some money, so she and Mackenzie did some digging and found that Mackenzie could cut her hair and sell it to Freedom Wigs and use the proceeds to donate to Viks Rescue. Along with the $200 raised from the hair donation, Mackenzie is also running a Givealittle page which has raised more than $2400 so far.

Mackenzie Meeuws’s golden locks are all measured out and ready for the chop.

Mackenzie said she wanted to raise the money “because I love cats and I decided that Viks Rescue helps lots of cats through her work”.

Jenny said she suggested the haircut fundraiser as “Mackenzie was born with a great head of hair and it’s not stopped growing since.”

The Givealittle page has already reached so many people that Mackenzie said she wasn’t too surprised by the amount of money and said, “That’s what we were aiming for.”

She added, “It feels good that people are helping by donating and helping animals.”

Mackenzie had been counting down the days till she went for her haircut and on Saturday, August 26 she was eagerly waiting both nervous and excited outside Di’s Hair & Wig Specialists in Onekawa.

Talking about her new haircut, Mackenzie wasn’t sure how much hair would be cut off but agreed it was going to be a bit of a change and said, “I’ll probably go to brush my hair and then go, ‘oh where is the rest of my hair’.”

Mackenzie Meeuws cuts her long blonde hair to help raise money for Viks Rescue. Photo / Paul Taylor

In the end, Di the hairdresser took off 42cm of Mackenzie’s golden blonde locks, leaving her with a nice short bob and bag of hair to send off to Freedom Wigs in Dunedin.

Along with receiving some money from Freedom Wigs for the cat rescue, Mackenzie’s hair will also will also help someone else once it’s made into a wig.

Vicky McKay, who runs Viks Rescue, is amazed by the generosity of such a young girl and said Mackenzie is her little Viks Rescue hero.

“Mackenzie and her family have done a Givealittle for Viks Rescue, and it’s absolutely blown me away that Mackenzie is also donating that money that she is getting from your hair.

“That’s awesome, I can’t even put into words how grateful I am for her doing that, because $200 is a lot of money for a little girl, it’s awesome,” McKay said.

While Mackenzie has done all the hard work, now the Givealittle page is active until September 15, so there’s still time to donate if you are able to, the family said, “even just $2 can make a big difference to support this amazing charity”.

All the money raised will be going to Viks Rescue, a registered cat and kitten rescue charity that has been operating in Hawke’s Bay since 2006.

They provide a rehabilitation and adoption service, as well as supporting pet owners with desexing and matching rescue cats and kittens with loving homes. All animals leave Viks Rescue healthy, with up-to-date vaccinations, flea and worm treatments, microchipped and de-sexed.

Maddisyn Jeffares became the editor of the Hawke’s Bay community papers Hastings Leader and Napier Courier in 2023 after writing the Hastings Leader for almost a year. She has been a reporter with the NZME for almost three years now and has a strong focus on what’s going on in the communities, good and bad, big and small. Email news tips to her at: maddisyn.jeffarea@nzme.co.nz