Barbershops have always been places to get a trim plus a bit of advice. Now, a traveling barbershop in Lincoln, Neb., is helping kids look good and feel good.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Barbershops have always been gathering places – for a haircut, sure, but also for conversation about politics, sports and neighborhood gossip, bad jokes and good news. Now, a traveling barbershop in Lincoln, Neb., is helping kids look good and feel good. Nebraska Public Media’s Mike Tobias reports.
MIKE TOBIAS, BYLINE: The hum of clippers and constant conversation fill every barbershop. It’s where guys like Lawrence Chatters and KB Mensah talk about, well, everything.
KB MENSAH: Sweets are my weakness.
LAWRENCE CHATTERS: I can tell.
MENSAH: (Laughter).
TOBIAS: A few years ago, in a barber chair, Chatters, a Ph.D. clinical therapist, says he and Mensah, his barber, had an idea.
CHATTERS: What about bringing the mentoring and barbering and also counseling into this mobile component and taking that around and being able to serve people where they are?
TOBIAS: Yep – a barbershop in a bus. As part of the nonprofit they formed, they striped the insides out of a 36-foot party bus, installed four chairs, lights, towel warmers and other things barbers need – even a barber pole. It’s called MIND Mobile, short for Mentoring In New Directions. Here’s how it works.
MENSAH: How you doing?
TOBIAS: Once a week, four 9- to 13-year-old boys leave their after-school program and board the parked bus – kids who, for different reasons, need a little extra support in their lives. The first 45 minutes is a cut and conversation, like Barber Zach Wenz talking about school with Adrian Bivens.
ZACH WENZ: And the grades looking good, too?
ADRIAN BIVENS: Yeah.
WENZ: That’s good. That’s good. You got to keep them up.
TOBIAS: Chatters says barbers are paired with the same kid each week, with a plan.
CHATTERS: We prep our barbers before they go in to work with the young people, and…
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