HELPFUL HINTS

DEAR HELOISE: A thought for individuals: Donate your hair to cancer patients. Just do a simple search of “donate hair,” and you’ll get several websites with information and instructions. Basically, they want either a ponytail or braid that’s 10 to 12 inches long of clean, not chemically treated, hair.

DEAR READER: This is an excellent way to give, especially since many of us have let our hair grow during the pandemic. At Cancer.net we found some guidelines: Choose where to send your hair. Organizations can have different processes, so choose one you are comfortable with.

Familiarize yourself with the donation requirements. For example, find out the minimum length they accept or whether they accept chemically treated hair, etc.

Find out if you can donate from home, or what instructions you and your hairdresser must follow.

I love the way my readers keep finding ways to help those in need, keeping the giving spirit alive no matter what goes on around us.

DEAR HELOISE: Now in my 80s, I recall early years when I had little interest in family history. Today, I would treasure finding any information about previous generations. People should take a long-range view of their family history and preserve letters, notes and documents that would give some insight into the lives our forbears lived. Someone a generation or more in the future will find such information priceless. Keep notes. Label photographs.

mmmDEAR READER: I agree with you. We see smiling faces of family members, but to people who never met them they are strangers. So many important events are lost if no one makes a note of it to pass on to the next generation.

DEAR HELOISE: How about the slew of graduation announcements arriving from kids you have never met who obviously have hijacked their parents’ address book looking for loot? Even worse, announcements arriving in a parent’s handwriting. This bank is closed, especially when no thank you note is sent.

DEAR HELOISE: When I’m feeling blue, I reach for a favorite poem. It always lifts my spirits and gives me encouragement.

DEAR READER: We all need a lift now and then, and there is something very calming about poetry.

Send a money- or time-saving hint to Heloise, P.O. Box 795001, San Antonio, Texas 78279-5000; fax to (210) 435-6473; or email

Heloise@Heloise.com