Brenda Pollom has been stalking Kansas University students, scoping out their hair.

If the hair is longer than 10 inches and isn’t bleached or permed, she asks the students if she can cut it off.

It’s not quite as strange as it sounds. Pollom is organizing a “hair drive” Tuesday to benefit Locks of Love, a national program that makes hairpieces for children with cancer.

“I tell them it’s for children with cancer, but it’s a fun-spirited event,” she said. “I don’t want it to be something that brings people down.”

Pollom, a senior from St. Louis, is staging the drive as part of her Media Management class. The assignment was to put on an event, publicize it and supervise other people while doing so.

Pollom said her goal was to collect 45 sets of hair Tuesday. She said she already had pledges from several classmates and friends, and she plans to get her own 15-inch braids hacked.

“I’ve been growing my hair out for four years,” she said. “I wanted it long. I said when it got long enough that I got sick of it, I’d chop it off.”

Pollom said her stepgrandmother was diagnosed with breast cancer two years ago. Shortly after that, Pollom said she had a dream about conducting a hair drive.

Now, she’s actually doing it.

“It’s so weird,” she said.

Kansas University senior Brenda Pollom, St. Louis, is hoping other KU students will join her and donate their hair for Locks of Love, a national program that makes wigs for children with cancer. Pollom will be set up Tuesday at Wescoe Beach with four Lawrence salons looking for donors ready to part with some of their hair. Pollom and a friend demonstrate what a hair donation might look like Friday on the KU campus.

The hair drive will be from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. on Wescoe Beach at KU. Pollom enlisted the help of four Lawrence salons Headmasters, 809 Vt., Sakaroff’s, 12 E. Eighth St., Get Ready, 714 Vt., and The Total Look, 708 W. Ninth St. to cut hair.

She also plans to have music. KJHK, the student-run radio station, is a sponsor.

Locks of Love, a nonprofit organization based in Lake Worth, Fla., was established in 1997. It has provided more than 800 hairpieces to children undergoing cancer treatment.

To qualify as a donor, a person’s hair must be at least 10 inches long and bundled in a pony tail or braid. It must be “healthy hair,” undamaged by bleach or recent perms, according to Locks of Love standards. Dyed hair is fine, so long as it’s healthy.

Gary Hawke, a lecturer who teaches Pollom’s class, said students chose a variety of projects. Hawke noted Pollom’s challenge of convincing people to part with hair they’ve been growing for years, which he said “could be a pretty traumatic experience.”

“She took on a good project,” Hawke said. “She really cares about it. She has a pretty lofty goal of the number of people donating hair. I thought if she got 10 people to donate hair she’d be doing pretty well.”