Photo: Samantha Beattie/CBC
On Saturdays, Gore Park in downtown Hamilton, Ontario, becomes a barber shop. Collin Alfred, 28, has cut the hair of more than 50 people during the year since he started offering his skills to people in need through his community outreach organization, Beating the Stereotypes. Alfred saw the power of a good haircut when he visited his friend Joshua Santiago in Philadelphia last year. Santiago founded Empowering Cuts, a non-profit organization offering the same services in the US. Then over Thanksgiving dinner in 2022, Alfred and some friends arrived at Philpott Memorial Church in Hamilton with 20 sandwiches and basic equipment. "We gave out two haircuts and that's how it started," Alfred said. Alfred wants to scale up his work by creating a mobile barbershop truck that he'll use to travel between Toronto and Hamilton, as well as to the US, offering free haircuts to anyone in need along the way.
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