10-Year-Old Grows Hair for 2 Years to Give Wig to Friend With Autoimmune Disease

A 10-year-old is wowing the internet for growing out his hair, but his decision has nothing to do with style and everything to do with having a kind heart.

Tyler Boone from Atlanta, GA met 12-year-old Gabby Ruiz from Riverview, FL two years ago at a family event and after noticing the young girl didn’t have hair, immediately wondered what he could to do help out, according to Inside Edition.

Ruiz has the autoimmune skin disease alopecia areta, which affects around 6.8 million in the U.S. with a lifetime risk of 2.1 percent according to the National Alopecia Areata Foundation. She has experienced hair loss since developing the disease at the age of 4 and her family cannot afford a real hair wig so she always resorted to wearing headbands or hats.

So Boone started growing out his hair for a wig – which requires 10 inches of hair – and two years later his preservation prevailed.

“Tyler’s a very caring kid; we weren’t surprised,” Boone’s father Jason told Inside Edition. “We told him, ‘You can cut your hair whenever you want,’ but he always said, ‘No,’ and he wanted to do it for Gabby.”

In fact, Ruiz was the one who cut it for him – only for a snip, until a stylist at J.C. Penney treated him to a free haircut.

And Ruiz’s mother, Emelia, said, “She’s so excited. It’s a sweet gesture. It’s nice to be able to see kids do things for other kids.”

The wig is being handled and made by nonprofit Children With Hair Loss and will get to Ruiz within the next six weeks; we imagine both Ruiz and Boone will be ecstatic when it arrives.

Your Daily Dish has reached out to Children With Hair Loss for a comment.