Western High School teacher teams with Louisville Barber to give students free haircuts

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WAVE) - Molding the future with hair clippers.

A Louisville barber made her way to Western High School to give some lucky students free haircuts on Friday.

This is a part of a program started by Western ninth grade English Teacher Cicily Bullard, AKA Ms. B, who is looking to help her kids feel more confident.

Her students said there’s just nothing like getting a fresh haircut because it makes you feel good and can change your whole mood.

It’s a serotonin boost that first year teacher Ms. B, hopes will change how her students feel about school.

“I just feel different, now I just feel like my day is going to be great because after this I got gym and so I’m getting ready to go in there and give people 30,” Ninth Grader Marquavion “Marq” Sheckles said. “You feel me? 30 in gym and a new hair cut.”

That’s the type of confidence that comes with a new haircut.

Sheckles said his new cut made him feel like a new person.

The initiative was started by Ms. B when she saw a need for it during a team bonding event.

“She wanted them to stand up and introduce themselves and one of her requirements was for the gentlemen to take off their hoods,” Ms. B said. “So one of my students stood up and he was very reluctant to take off his hood and when he did, everybody started laughing because his hair was beaded up and he hadn’t had a haircut in months and so right then and there I’m like okay what can I do.”

She took to Facebook to ask the barber community for help and her childhood friend “Roe Da Barber” came to shape up a problem she knows all to well.

“Cause I was once going down the wrong path and someone was like hey, what is it that you won’t to do and I said I do like cutting hair,” Roe Da Barber said. “So barbering saved my life, so maybe I can save some kid’s lives you know?”

With the snap of the clippers and the sharpness of the blade, Roe Da Barber is able to transform lives, even if for a day.

“I love making people feel good,” Roe said. “When they get out of my chair and they smile and they’re you know snapping it and you know just making a person feel good.”

Sheckles can testify. He went three weeks without a haircut and now he’s ready to take on school, and the world.

Thanks to teachers like Ms. B, he feels he can achieve it.

“And I feel like I’m real blessed to have a teacher like Ms. B because not only is she an English teacher but to me she’s like a guidance counselor,” Sheckles said.

A testimony Ms. B feels shows she’s in the right place at the right time.

“Seeing them smile, seeing them more apt to ask questions,” Ms. B said. “A lot of my students cower when I ask them questions and a lot of it has to do with their appearance and the anxiety of not looking their best. So looking their best definitely boosts up their productivity and their engagement in the classroom.”

Because the initiative is so popular, Ms. B said she hopes to make this a permanent program called “In the Cut” and she wants to ensure any kid struggling to go to a barbershop can get a haircut free of charge every Friday right at school.

Right now, she said she has enough donations to help 15 more kids get haircuts.

If you would like to add to the donations, you can so by contacting Ms. B at her email cicily@cicilyofficial.com or donating to her CashApp $CicilyOfficial.

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