The humming of clippers, guys’ laughter and the sound of TV sports activities echo off the walls of City Cuts.
At first, it looks as if an ordinary barber store. But listen intently, and you will pay attention snippets of poetry or strains from “Diaries of a Wimpy Kid.”
Behind those barber’s chairs stand guys dedicated to assisting kids to construct self-esteem through studying.
It’s all due to an application, “Books by means of Kids,” started by using Jon Escueta, the founder and proprietor of this barbershop in Kutztown, Pennsylvania.
His young customers get $3 to study an e book of their desire during their haircut. Customers and network participants donate books and finances. There’s additionally a GoFundMe account to assist cowl costs.
“Our purpose is for the kids to boost their self-belief in the front of others without fear of being judged,” says Escueta.
He believes that as youngsters begin to feel more relaxed studying to their barber, they will deliver their confidence into maturity.
Escueta put up the primary $50 and watched his idea slowly take off. But, it wasn’t till he uploaded a video to Facebook of a boy reading to his barber that his concept has become a motion.
The video has greater than 13 million perspectives. Escueta says at the least 10 different barber stores and hair salons around u . S. Have comparable packages.
He can relate to shy youngsters
Escueta’s desire to empower kids stems from his personal adolescence ache.
The 32-yr-antique immigrated while he became 8 from the Philippines.
He credits an aunt and uncle for directing him as a youngster. But it wasn’t clean.
“I failed to recognize English and that changed into loads,” he says. “I felt like I became being judged.”
Escueta says he feels a near connection to the boys sitting in his chair who war with shyness.
“The ones who’re timid — I gravitate in the direction of the one’s kids,” he says. “I recognize what it appears like and try and lead them to experience true approximately themselves.”
He selected studying as a way to boost his young customers’ self-assurance because a 7th-grade teacher did the same for him.
“I told my studying teacher I didn’t like it [reading]. I appreciated basketball.”
So, the educator used an e-book approximately basketball to entice Escueta to read.
