One Florida barber is changing the lives of the youth in his community one book and haircut at a time.
Antonio Brown owns Central Station Barbershop and Grooming in St. Petersburg. He’s not only dedicating his time to ensure men walk out of his establishment looking dapper but that his young customers will have some of the best literacy skills in the city. To do so, he offers them a free haircut if they read a book while in his chair. He allows them to keep the books they read so they can build a library of their own.
“We know in south St. Pete, the reading proficiency levels are less than 27%,” Brown told WFLA . “They don’t even have one book in the household that teaches them or has characters that look like them with name, image or likeness.”
Brown himself had a rough past before he became a barber. A former drug dealer, he engaged in street life activities due to his surroundings which he felt made it more difficult to stay on the straight and narrow route according to WFLA.