The things that shape us in life often occur during our childhoods.
Memories of a kind teacher or a friendly doctor might have a hand in helping us decide what we wanted to do when we grew up.
Just like those memories can stick with us as we age, the children who visit the Fuller Cut Barbershop in Ypsilanti, MI are sure to remember their time sitting in the barber's chair.
But it isn’t necessarily the haircut that the kids will remember; the Fuller Cut has started taking a special kind of payment.
In exchange for a $2 discount on their haircuts, the shop has kids who visit read aloud to their barbers while getting trimmed.
This practice, which has been embraced by shops around the country, helps cultivate a love of reading and boosts children’s confidence.
We have explored before what an incredible gift literacy is to a child, but this is more than just teaching them how to read.
The most significant impact of this reading is that all the books portray positive images of African Americans.
This provides representation and good role models for the children to carry with them when they face life’s obstacles.
Even children who have yet to start reading become engaged with the shop’s practice.
Pre-school aged children gravitate to the books as well and start their introduction to the literary world right there in a barber’s chair.
In those ways, the Fuller Cut Barbershop is contributing to the futures of all those children.
From time spent in the chair, one child might become a writer because of influence gained by reading at the shop.
Another could become a civil rights lawyer to fight for the same representation they saw in those books.
Their potential is as numerous as the pages that are still to be read at the Fuller Cut.
And their endings are sure to be nothing but Happily Ever Afters.