Little Princess Trust
The Little Princess Trust is a UK-based charity that provides free real hair wigs to children and young adults who have lost their hair due to cancer treatment or other illnesses.
The charity was founded in 2006 by the parents of Hannah Tarplee, their friends and Hereford Cathedral Junior School.
In 2004 Hannah was diagnosed with a Wilms tumour. Hannah loved her hair and losing it was very traumatic for her. Her parents, Wendy and Simon, searched high and low to find a wig suitable for Hannah, during her treatment. When they found one, it had a hugely positive effect on Hannah.
Tragically, Hannah passed away in 2005 and with so many kind offers of financial and practical help, Wendy and Simon felt the most fitting tribute would be to launch a charity dedicated to providing real hair wigs for children and young people.
Since then, The Little Princess Trust has provided thousands of real hair wigs to children and young people, aged up to 24, across the UK and Ireland. Links have also been made with salons in Sweden, Bulgaria, Portugal and Germany to provide our free wig provision service abroad.
In 2016, thanks to the efforts of our fantastic fundraisers, we were able to start funding pioneering academics and institutions leading the way in researching new and better treatments for all paediatric cancers. An area where there is so much work which desperately needs investment. We have now committed more than £21 million across more than 100 projects covering all childhood cancers.
We are striving to improve patient outcomes through access to new treatments through clinical trials as well as improving existing treatments. We are working incredibly hard to identify innovative and impactful ways to improve survival and reduce the effects of treatment. Our mission is to invest in the right areas to fill some of these funding gaps.
Our generous volunteers and fundraisers work incredibly hard to ensure we can continue to help even more children and young people. We are indebted to them all.