Cancer patients fitted for wigs after free giveaway

CHICAGO (FOX 32 News) - A local woman who owns a company that sells wigs to women with cancer decided this Breast Cancer Awareness Month that it was time to give some away for free.

And now, some of those women who are currently being treated for cancer finally got fitted for their new wig on Tuesday.

"It has been wonderfully overwhelming," said Sharon Gary.

Gary just received a free wig after losing her hair to breast cancer about two years ago.

"My hair is not gonna grow back to the way it was, and I have to have a wig for life," Gary said.

She heard about the Chrysalis Custom Hair Wig Giveaway on Facebook and wanted to feel like herself again.

"The more you can be yourself again, the more you feel like you're moving forward," Gary said.

Chrysalis owner Kimberly Johnson helps women with cancer do that. She sells custom wigs and fits them at private appointments. Those wigs are all new, and never before worn.

However, Johnson recently decided that she would start accepting donated wigs for women who may need a used one.

"There is nobody who is willing to take used wigs. Period. I decided to give it a shot,” Johnson said.

The wigs then started pouring in, and some had notes attached.

“They say things like ‘this was my wife's, I want to make sure you get this to somebody in need’," Johnson said.

So, she did.

Johnson put 40 of the wigs, worth about $40,000 dollars, online and had women with any kind of cancer register for the lottery and a chance to get custom fitted with their favorite for free.

Gary won her pick.

"When I saw the wig, it looks like my hair. It looks like my hair before and I cried. I had tears in my eyes, cuz you know it just. It’s hard. It’s hard," Gary said.

"I’m almost speechless. I don't even know how to tell you how happy we've been able to make people,” Johnson said.

She’s had back to back appointments with women who won the wigs, and more than 30 donated wigs have come in since FOX 32 did the story about the giveaway last week.

So soon, more women will get to feel like Gary, who by the way has been told she is cancer free.

"She’s given me back part of me and all of the other women that were in this, that are benefitting from this. It’s immeasurable and I’m so grateful. So grateful," Gary said.

Johnson and her store Crysalis will post the next giveaway on their Facebook page.

For now, they continue to focus on their clients who continue to need to be fitted with new wigs every day.