With the summer coming to a close and families across the country preparing for another year of carpooling and supply runs, kids are starting to worry about much more than just homework. Social life can be hard for students of every age, and looking as cool as possible often feels like a matter of life or death. Keeping up with trends can be expensive, though. Many families struggle to make sure their kids are able to have even the most basic clothes let alone paying $25 or more for something like a haircut.
However, a group of volunteer stylists gathered for the third year in a row at The Barbers Inc. Barbershop in San Jose, California to help relieve some of the back to school stress for kids and their families. Kids from preschool to senior year lined up last Sunday for free haircuts as part of the Kutz 4 Kidz program run by shop owner Dave Diggs. Diggs assembled a team of barbers from all over the U.S., with some traveling from as far as Richmond, Virginia and Albany, New York.
For Diggs, Kutz 4 Kidz is more than just a means of helping out the community. It is a deeply personal project influenced by his childhood growing up in the very same neighborhood his shop is in today.
“When I was growing up, I never got to go to a barbershop,” he said, “You’d get your haircut by family or friends at someone’s house. Now I see kids walking to my son’s school whose family could never afford a real haircut, and I know how a nice haircut can give a kid the confidence he needs to go back to school after the summer break.”
Smiling faces and thankful parents outside The Barbers Inc. Barbershop seem to say that the Kutz 4 Kidz program has succeeded at gifting confidence to students returning to school in Diggs’ San Jose neighborhood.