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Four-year-old Genesis Reyes lost all her hair after battling cancer. Her plight inspired a Facebook campaign called "Beautiful and Bald Barbie! Let's see if we can get it made." Well it looks like her prayers have been answered. After receiving more than 150,000 "likes" in less than four months, Mattel announced that it will create the bald dolls.
Mattel announces Barbie for children with cancerWhen Genesis lost her hair, she told her parents that she did not feel like a princess anymore. The parent of another child, who had cancer and was being treated at the same hospital as Genesis, asked her close friend, who just so happened to be the CEO of Mattel, to make a one-off doll for Genesis.
When Beckie Sypin and Jane Bingham heard about Genesis's heartbreaking story, they were inspired to create the Facebook group to get Mattel to manufacture the dolls for children dealing with hair loss. The bald Barbie dolls will not be sold in stores, because Mattel says it does not want to profit from them. Instead, the dolls will be distributed throughout the U.S. and Canada to hospitals treating children for cancer. The Barbies will be outfitted with hats, scarves, and wigs that can be interchanged for different looks.
In addition to the Facebook campaign to get the hairless dolls made, there was also a petition started on change.org to get 35,000 signatures for a bald Barbie. So far, the petition is only 182 signatures shy of its goal.
Mattel is not the first company to create bald dolls for ailing children. In January, Bratz and Moxie dolls announced their line of "True Hope" dolls for both boys and girls.
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Like your pancakes with lots of maple syrup? If so, hope you have a good stock of it in your pantry. If not, now may be a good time to try and stock up. This winter's unusually warm temperatures have a downside -- they are causing maple farmers distress.
Maple trees need cold days and freezing nights to keep the flow of the sap used for syrup at normal levels. When winter weather goes away early (as it did this year), hormones in the trees spoil the sap's taste. Even farmers with high-tech vacuum systems are looking at producing only a little over half of what they usually harvest.
Ben Schultz, a Wisconsin farmer whose family has 2,500 trees, says sap production is way down this year. "It's a 70-degree day in March, and we're complaining about the weather while every other Wisconsinite is rejoicing. That's money out of our pocket," Schultz said. His family's farm usually produces 350 to 400 gallons of syrup, but this year they made only about 165 gallons.
Industry experts say not to worry too much about shortages as syrup prices probably will not become too high. However, if you notice your pancakes are a bit dry this year, blame old man winter.