GRAND OPENING OF SODA VIP SALON AT CHILDREN’S HEALTHCARE-by Erik Pearson

2012 has kicked off with a bang at Soda Salon but nothing makes us more excited than announcing the much anticipated Soda VIP Salon at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. For the last year our award-winning team of stylists have been providing complimentary cuts and styles for the children and their families in long-term care at CHOA.  Many of these children are at the hospital for many months as they go through the treatments and recovery process necessary to allow them to return to their homes, schools, and communities.

We knew that the children would need to have a haircut and that they may want to have a shampoo and or blowstyle to help during their stay at CHOA. Little did we realize how happy the children would be to see us at each and every visit.  The Soda Team would make room visits to each of the patients sometimes we would even set up in the hospital’s gym so that we could really spread out and have some fun. Turns out that not just adults find a visit to the salon to be a wonderful moment of escapism.  The Soda team not only cuts and styles the children’s hair but we now offer feather extensions, nail painting, formal styling, hair braiding, and temporary tattoos.  Sometimes we have visitors that just want to stop in to say “hi” and play games with us.

With each visit we gained a bigger and bigger fan club, both with the children and the staff until finally it became evident that it was time to build out a Mini VIP Soda Salon at Children’s.  This way we could have shampoo bowls, styling chairs, dryers, and the other aspects that make a true functioning salon. Plus we

could truly make it look and feel like a real salon that wasn’t a “hospital” so that the children could have an experience that was fun and different from their daily treatments and doctors visits.

After a number of fundraisers and some amazingly generous donations, Soda and Children’s Healthcare were able to raise the funds necessary to build out the all new Soda VIP Salon. In the last couple of weeks we have been able to see our first clients in the new salon and already it feels like home. Now we can have three or four stylists doing hair at a time, while two or three are also painting nails, and applying temporary tattoos or feather extensions. We play music and movies for the boys and girls and thanks to our very generous product companies we can also provide our children with complimentary styling products so that they can keep their new do’s looking the very best. Each time we show up we have a line of children at the door ready to hang out and have fun with us.  Nothing could be better!!

Over the next couple of months we will be adding our finishing touches to the new space to make it extra special; a true reflection of the original Soda Salon.  Our success has been so great that we are already working on our second Soda VIP

Salon down the road at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Egleston by the Emory University Campus.

We would also like to share a wish list of items that you or someone you may know could help us acquire to make the kid’s experience even more special.  Thank you so much for supporting us in this very rewarding experience that we get to share with our VIP Kids at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.  I would also like to thank ALTERNA HAIRCARE for donating three huge boxes of products, including shampoos, conditioners, and countless styling products to give complementary to our VIP kids!!  You guys rock.

Dream List:

- iPod sound dock

- 4 iPads(for the children to search the internet for styles and to also play games and music during their visit)

- Current kid friendly movies on DVD (ages 3-18)

- iTunes gift cards so that we can build a library of music for the kids to choose from

- Gift Cards to Party City (where we get a lot of games and supplies for our visits)

- Art supplies-paint, crayons, canvases, etc.

- Monatary Donations to be used to purchase a new couch, cafe table with four chairs, and a manicure table