Since the fall, Charlottesville and Albemarle County have seen a significant spike in shootings—several involving juveniles. On January 23, a male juvenile was injured in a shooting in the area of Sixth and Garrett streets. Three months earlier, Charlottesville police arrested three teenage boys, ages 14 to 17, in connection with an October 15 Omni Hotel parking lot shooting that left two male juveniles injured. After a middle school student Daniel Fairley works with was shot multiple times on Hardy Drive on November 12, he and Fernando Garay wondered how they could help stop gun violence among young people.
“We had just both felt that pain for the city,” says Garay, owner of House of Cuts Barber Studio, located on the UVA Corner. “[We thought], ‘What can we do to create preventative measures and an impact?’”
“[We wanted] to address the issue right here, right now,” adds Fairley, president of the 100 Black Men of Central Virginia.
After securing a large donation from the Charlottesville Alliance for Black Male Achievement, House of Cuts and the 100 BMOCV offered 100 free haircuts to Charlottesville High School students in December, aiming to provide young Black and brown men a safe space to open up about their feelings and struggles—and receive guidance and advice from men who experienced similar challenges. Now, all Charlottesville and Albemarle County public school middle and high schoolers can come into the shop for a free cut, thanks to the over $3,000 in donations the program—dubbed the #100Cuts Initiative—has received from local organizations and residents.
“When you look clean, that really just helps you with your day-to-day life,” says Garay, pointing to young men who get teased when they don’t have their hair cut. “When you look better, you feel better. When you look cleaned up, you perform better.”
“There’s almost an air of invincibility that comes from the kids when they step out of the barber’s chair,” says Fairley, who is also a youth opportunity coordinator focused on Black male achievement for the City of Charlottesville. “When you come out of the chair, no one can do anything but lift you up.”
The free cuts have been a big help for students whose families cannot afford to take them to the barber shop—a cut typically costs $40 at House of Cuts. (Each sponsored cut costs a discounted $30.)
“Some of these students … only received a haircut previously during our free back to school bash [in August],” says Garay. “This is a need for the community—not a want for the community.”
To serve students who may not have a way to get to the barber shop, the initiative leaders have partnered with CCS and ACPS to bring barbers into schools. On January 24, barbers gave more than 30 free haircuts at CHS, and on February 13, provided 30 more at Buford Middle School. Teachers and administrators have also volunteered to bring students to appointments at the shop.
“All those kids [at CHS] were looking rough and joking on each other … but as soon as those shape ups were put on them and the fades were done, they were like, ‘Oh my gosh, you look so good,’” says Garay. “Just that in itself is so important.”
To date, barbers have provided more than 150 free haircuts at schools and House of Cuts. Later this month, they will head to Albemarle High School. And next month, Lugo-McGinness Academy students will take a trip to the Corner shop.
Soon, the initiative will go beyond haircuts—in partnership with Charlottesville-Albemarle Technical Education Center, 100 BMOCV and House of Cuts are working to develop a barber program, which the center has not had since 2015.
“[The program] will allow kids to be pulled out of these circumstances [and] see themselves in a different way [and] a future for themselves,” says Fairly. “The things you think you may be wanting or getting in the streets, it’s not the same as what you can be getting legally through barbering.”
Some students who have received free haircuts have already shown interest in becoming a barber, says the initiative’s Community Engagement Coordinator Amanda Burns. A teacher shared with Burns that one student “never talked about anything that he wants to do in the future,” but after he came to the shop for a cut, “we had to start googling clipper sets.”
Longtime barber Will Jones—Garay’s mentor—will lead the new program, which will allow both high schoolers and recent grads to participate, and offer night classes “to keep kids out of trouble” after school, says Fairley.
In addition to training students to earn their barber license, the program will partner with local nonprofits to teach students entrepreneurship skills, and with Black therapists to provide them with counseling and mental health training.
“Barbers often act as confidants, and are trusted with important sensitive information from their clientele,” says Fairley. “We want to prepare them for those experiences.”
This summer, the organizations plan to start fundraising for the barber program, something that will cost between $30,000 and $40,000 to get off the ground. They aim to launch next year.
To donate to the #100Cuts Initiative, visit linktr.ee/100cuts.