LITHIA SPRINGS, Ga. — A Lithia Springs mom who spent the last four years giving her time and talent to help kids in crisis feel their best is now dealing with a crisis of her own.
"The joy I get from just blessing families and making them happy by giving their children hair is just unexplainable," Quilla Bohannon explained. "I do it for the smiles."
Since 2018, the metro mom has created hundreds of wigs by hand, gifting them to kids suffering from hair loss due to alopecia, cancer or various medical issues.
"The kids need it," Bohannon said of her mission, FreeWigs4Kids. "With medical bills and childhood cancer, they can't afford to pay for these expensive wigs."
FreeWigs4Kids is about rebuilding children's confidence in the face of adversity, but after a devastating fire ripped through her home last Tuesday, it's Bohannon who must now rebuild.
"The only thing I could see was the floor because everything was all black," she said. "The pressure slammed the front door shut, and you could hear all the windows exploding."
Bohannon lost everything, including her wig business which she operated out of her home studio.
"The house has to be gutted and rebuilt from the bottom to the top again," she explained.
Bohannon also lost the hair donations destined for kids waiting on a wig.
"It just hit me," Bohannon said. "I don't have anything to make wigs, we don't have anything."
While she said insurance should cover her home, she expects to spend the next six months living in a hotel with her 10-year-old daughter. Determined to deliver to kids still waiting on a wig, she's carved out a corner in her hotel room to continue working.
But she's in need of salon equipment, mannequins and hair donations and hopeful someone from the community can help.
She added, "the waiting list was already months-long, but now we're looking at even longer."