Council Speaker Adrienne Adams shows her support as 15-year-old Emily Algredo sacrifices her hair for a fourth time to help Butterflies By Blaq provide wigs for children suffering hair loss due to cancer treatment.
Photo by Paul Frangipane
A student at Forest Hills High School from South Richmond Hill was just 6 years old when she first became aware of children suffering through cancer treatments. Now 15, Emily Algredo sat down on Wednesday, Aug. 16, at Butterflies By Blaq Incorporated in St. Albans to have her long beautiful hair cut off for a fourth time to donate to young cancer patients experiencing hair loss.
“When I was 6 and saw that St. Jude’s Hospital commercial for the first time, I felt bad for those kids because they didn’t have any hair and I thought how privileged I was and I knew I wanted to do this,” Algredo said. “I feel proud to donate and I think it’s a good way to encourage other people to do good stuff.”
Watching proudly as her daughter donated 15 inches of her locks, Sherry Algredo remembered back to the first time Emily sacrificed for other children.
“I said Emily, if you cut it off you’re going to look like a boy and she went ahead anyway and had it chopped off,” she said. “And she was determined saying, ‘I have to do this,’ and she did and she did look funny.”
Dedication to community service runs in the family and led the New York State Senate to recognize Sherry Algredo as a 2021 Woman of Distinction. She emigrated to the United States in 1994 and developed her love of community service from her father who was Red Cross president for 25 years in her home country of Trinidad. When she became a new parent and had difficulties navigating the public school system, she decided to get involved in education.
In 2013 Algredo was elected to the Queens Community Education Council for District 27 where she worked on the zoning of a new school, renaming of schools and advocated for fair funding. She is the current…
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