When Brooke Ferreira was a pre-schooler, she decided she wanted long hair. Slowly, steadily, she grew it out.

She went without a haircut for five years, until her hair turned from short bob to "bum-length," as her mother, Suzette, described.

It was her signature. Brooke didn't want to cut it.

Until last week. A friend at Memorial Elementary School, another second-grader, had donated her hair to Locks of Love, a non-profit group that collects donations of hair and gives them to children suffering from hair loss, from cancer and other diagnoses.

Brooke came home, excited about this idea.

"So that was it," Suzette Ferreira wrote. "Since last Thursday, she has hounded me to take her for a haircut so that she too could donate it."

On Tuesday, Ana Peniche at Plaza Barber Shop on Main Street gave Brooke her first haircut since 2008, removing a 12-inch-long ponytail.

And Brooke now has a very cute, shoulder-length style.