She Got a $10,000 Surprise from a Stranger—Now Her Salon Has Blessed 8,000+ Women Fighting Cancer
How a $10,000 gift inspired Pam Westers to offer free salon care to thousands of cancer fighters
Key Takeaways
- A surprise $10,000 donation helped Pam Westers launch free salon days for women with cancer.
- Beautiful You by Profile has pampered more than 8,000 cancer patients over 12 years.
- Former breast cancer patient Kathryn Youngquist beat cancer and returned as a volunteer.
Pam Westers turned a salon into a meaningful mission that has provided pampering to more than 8,000 women. Here, she shares her story with Woman’s World.
When Pam Westers took over Profile, the Comstock Park, Michigan, salon where she had worked for 35 years, the salon coordinator approached Pam with an idea.
“I heard about a salon in New York that helps women in cancer treatment feel beautiful,” she explained, and wondered, “Could we do something like that here?”
Pam loved the idea, but she didn’t know if she had the finances to pull it off. Until one day, a salon regular came in and handed Pam a check for $10,000 from her mother’s estate.
“She loved your idea and wanted you to have this,” the woman told Pam.
Inspired, Pam decided to move forward with the plan.
“Beautiful You by Profile,” read the brochures Pam created and set out in local oncology centers, inviting women in treatment to come in for hair styling, manicures and pedicures — all free of charge.
Between the pamphlets and word of mouth, hundreds of women were soon making appointments. The salon staff joined Pam when she closed the shop the second Monday of every month for Beautiful You sessions, and cosmetologists from other local salons began volunteering.
Pam immediately noticed the women would leave their sessions more lighthearted.
Kathryn Youngquist was beginning radiation treatments for breast cancer when she and her husband, Mark, spotted a Beautiful You pamphlet in the doctor’s waiting room. At first, she was reluctant, but one day, Mark said gently, “Maybe we should stop in to look around.”
The instant Kathryn stepped through the door, she felt at home.
“My hair’s gotten so thin, it makes me feel self-conscious,” Kathryn told Pam.
Pam combed and clipped, and with her decades of styling expertise, she shaped a shorter hairstyle that made Kathryn beam with joy.
Kathryn returned every month for a full year of pampering. She beat her cancer, but she wasn’t ready to leave Beautiful You. Instead, she became a volunteer greeter.
Over the past dozen years, Beautiful You by Profile has brightened the lives of more than 8,000 women from as far as 50 miles away. Pam has also established seven branch Beautiful You by Profile salons inside medical centers where women can go for hair and spa treatments before and after chemo or radiation.
“If you feel better about yourself, you’re going to feel stronger in treatment,” Pam says. “We’re so very grateful for the chance to bring joy to these women.”
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