One Florida barber is changing the lives of the youth in his community one book and haircut at a time.
Antonio Brown owns Central Station Barbershop and Grooming in St. Petersburg. He’s not only dedicating his time to ensure men walk out of his establishment looking dapper but that his young customers will have some of the best literacy skills in the city. To do so, he offers them a free haircut if they read a book while in his chair. He allows them to keep the books they read so they can build a library of their own.
“We know in south St. Pete, the reading proficiency levels are less than 27%,” Brown told WFLA . “They don’t even have one book in the household that teaches them or has characters that look like them with name, image or likeness.”
Brown himself had a rough past before he became a barber. A former drug dealer, he engaged in street life activities due to his surroundings which he felt made it more difficult to stay on the straight and narrow route according to WFLA.
“I was just out here selling drugs, I was doing some of the real knucklehead stuff,” Brown admitted. “It was easy for me to go in the direction of the streets because I had friends and family in that area, but it was more difficult and more of a challenge to go in the right direction.”
The entrepreneur decided to change the trajectory of his life after he was arrested and couldn’t drive for 10 years due to his license being suspended. That’s when he got a job and began barber school to earn an honest living. After being a barber for several years under six different employers, he bet on himself and opened his current barbershop in 2015.
“I decided to put the streets away and challenge myself and do something different and change the outlook of what my friends and family had on me,” he said.
Soon after Brown started the Competitive Readers Coalition, his reading program formally known as the Barbershop Book Club. Since starting his initiative, 15,000 kids have participated and 15,000 books have been given out. Each child who joins the program gets 24 books and 24 free haircuts annually.
“He’s like a father I never had,” 14-year-old Nehemiah Harris told WFLA about Brown’s guidance. “He’s a good influence. He taught me how to be a better man.”
In addition to reading, the barber helps teach financial literacy by helping the parents open bank accounts for their children. The money that would’ve been spent on a haircut goes into their child’s account to be used following high school graduation.
“I rather be used because if I’m not being used then I’m useless,” he said. “They’ll always have in the back of their minds that someone cared enough to pour into me and give me things that will help me be successful in life.”
According to ABC Action News , a piece of advice that was shared with Brown and he continues to pass along is: “The days are basically what you make them. If you wake up with a positive attitude and you manifest positive things in your life, those things will eventually come to fruition.”
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