Shop for a Cause: Headbands of Hope Helps Restore Confidence in Young Cancer Patients

Here's a fact: Cancer takes the lives of more children in the U.S. than any other disease. While interning with a wish-granting organization in 2011, Jessica Ekstrom saw that many cancer-stricken young girls faced a traumatic struggle with self-esteem on top of having to battle for their lives. Courses of chemotherapy caused many of the girls to lose their hair and for some this was a big blow to their confidence.

Ekstrom decided to battle this problem head on with headbands. She founded Headbands of Hope in 2012 to help restore these girls' confidence as well as raise awareness for childhood cancer. For every headband sold, Headbands of Hope donates one headband to a sick child and $1 to cancer research. To date, they have donated over 15,000 headbands to children. (They even have a boys line, Headwear of Hope.)

And now, Headbands of Hope has partnered with Swarovski on a line of luxury headbands. The headbands (above) come in five colors and are covered in Swarovski crystals. They retail for $250, and for each headband sold, 25 are donated to children and $25 is donated to children's cancer research.

"The best part of my job is opening the door to [the girl's] room and seeing their faces light up when I bring dozens of colorful headbands to their beds to choose from," Ekstrom, now 22, says on the Headbands of Hope website. Her goal is to raise awareness of childhood cancer, which needs to be treated differently than adult cancer due to the complications in adolescents. Raising awareness, she says, will lead to more funding for research, which she hopes will lead to finding a cure.

The Headbands of Hope Swarovski embellished headbands are available now at headbandsofhope.org.