NATCHEZ — When Katlyn Freeman lost her uncle to leukemia last year, instead of sulking, she decided to pay it forward.

Her uncle, Mike Weathersby, was just 40 when he died of cancer last March. Katlyn’s mother, Krys, tried to help her brother by donating bone marrow, but couldn’t.

“I was only a half-match,” Krys said.

So 16-year-old Katlyn took on a mission to help someone else suffering from the same disease that took her uncle.

“I decided to donate my hair to locks of love and help a little girl with cancer,” she said.

Every month since September Katlyn had been coming in to the salon to get her hair measured until it was finally long enough.

Katlyn arrived at the Mane Event last week for the big haircut — 9 inches of her long, blond locks.

“I’m nervous,” she said before hopping in the chair.

But now Freeman is getting used to her chin-length do and knows it was well worth it.

Katlyn, a Natchez resident who is home-schooled, said her uncle played a big part in her education.

“He’s the one — I’m really bad at math — and he said, ‘Call me anytime, and I’ll help you with your math,’” Katlyn said.

She said her grandfather used to be her resident math tutor, and when he died, her uncle stepped up to the plate.

Katlyn said since she is shy, she was too timid to ask the teacher for help when she attended a regular school.

But now that she is homeschooled, she can chat virtually with her teacher from virtualedu.org and receive one-on-one extra help.

And her uncle’s tutoring before he died helped her math grades improve, Katlyn said.

“He’s was an awesome uncle,” Katlyn said of Weathersby, who was a Natchez fireman. “He always took care of us.”

Krys said it was no surprise that Katlyn wanted to help someone else with cancer after losing her uncle.

“My child has been had a bleeding heart for people and animals,” Krys said.

“I can’t even kill a spider or shoot a deer,” Katlyn added.

And Katlyn isn’t stopping with the first 9 inches. Both she and Krys plan to grow out their hair and donate to locks of love again next year.

“It’s mother-daughter bonding,” Katlyn said.

“I just really wanted to help somebody with cancer, to make them feel special,” she said.

Locks of Love is a public non-profit organization that provides hairpieces to financially disadvantaged children in the United States and Canada from long-term medical hair loss from any diagnosis like cancer.

Katlyn is the daughter of Kris and Travis Freeman.