A Phoenix entrepreneur is using his content creating powers to send hair love to kids and teens in need.
Will Humphrey started his nonprofit Rooted Youth with a mission to give high-quality hair care products, tools and education to Black and brown kids in the foster care system. Humphrey delivered his first haul of 60 boxes to foster kids in Arizona in November. He is already in touch with other agencies eager for his next batch of boxes. Humphrey hopes the products give children a sense of autonomy and self-care during a time when they can control very little.
“Rooted Youth is about celebrating natural hair, and then making sure that all that magic that’s in natural hair that the youth can play with that and use that to inform their own identities, self confidence and agency over how they look and present themselves,” Humphrey said.
Humphrey’s heart melts for these teens and children because he was once one. Born and raised in New Jersey, he floated in and out of foster care from age 3 to 13 years old. He is familiar with how the system can shred a child’s sense of identity because they don’t get a say on where they live. While he didn’t live with a white foster family, the Black foster families he did stay with didn’t have the time to do his hair. Buzz cuts were the norm and that was it. He couldn’t grow his hair out like he wanted.
Things got worse when he was placed in a juvenile detention center at 10 years old.
“I wasn’t put in there for some crime or thing that I did, but because that was a state resource,” Humphrey said “I was in the custody of the state, and that was the only place that they had available.”
The detention center was run by white people who barely provided shampoo, even for straight hair. Authorities ignored his request to receive hair products made for his hair texture, which left a young Humphrey feeling hopeless. “I remember thinking to myself, ‘I can’t wait to age out of all of this so I can just do my…
Read the full article here