One day Courtney Holmes was jogging the hilly terrain in Dubuque, Iowa, past lots of trees, near Clarke University. As he and so many are prone to do when they exercise, he directed his thoughts inward
“I was talking to God,” the 45-year-old told me in our recent interview. “I said, ‘If there’s anything you want me to be, let me know. Use me.’ After I prayed that prayer, I did a small act of kindness.”
He had no idea in that act he would get his answer.
As part of the Dubuque Black Men Coalition, Holmes had coordinated with Anderson Sainci on a back-to-school event in August. As a barber, Holmes’ role would be to give haircuts to boys at the community gathering. They came up with the idea of giving the cuts for free if the kids read to Holmes while he cut their hair.
And so it went. Kids would pick a book from a pile and sit in Holmes’ chair. The line got longer and longer; so many lined up, in fact, that he wound up giving out his business card as a voucher they could use at the Spark Family Hair Salon where he works.
Then came the attention. Bam. The “storybook barber” – a term he’s trademarking – was widely covered in local and national media outlets. People magazine, Fox News, and Rachael Ray, just to name a few. The feedback has come not only from all over the United States, but from Canada, the Philippines, and Germany.
“It’s not about me, it’s about the kids,” Holmes says. “While the torch is hot, I’m going to keep the fire going. Across the nation. It’s a positive thing. These kids are our future.”
When Holmes laughingly referred to his “15 minutes of fame” he also noted it would go away.
“But I won’t be going away,” he says.
It all comes back to the talk with God. He’s being “used” to bring attention to childhood literacy. He gets that on a big level.
“We’re going to try to do this bigger, make sure everybody is going to help out with this,” Holmes says.
For example, there is now one day a month at the Spark Family Hair Salon where kids can get a free haircut if they read while they’re in the chair. Holmes has turned to CrowdRise.com to raise funds. There is a hashtag campaign (#barberreadingchallenge) where other salons can share their stories, and a YouTube video. He is poised to see this through.
This is not something Holmes could have envisioned when he and his wife moved their family – two boys, ages 3 and 2 – to Dubuque from Chicago about a year and a half ago. Looking for better school options, they chose the place his wife had grown up. Holmes holds two jobs. In addition to cutting hair, he works for the city of Dubuque as a seasonal employee.
“I have my foot in the door,” he says. “To work for the city fulltime I have to pass a civil service test in the spring.”
Once seasonal work ends in November, he’ll turn to being a barber fulltime. In addition to his work and his devotion to childhood literacy, he spends as much time as he can with his kids.
“My 3-year-old’s vocabulary is unbelievable,” he says with a laugh. “It’s because I read to him. The kids like it. We read two books every night. If I’m tired and I try to read one, they ask for the other one. And they try to pick the longest ones, too.”
Holmes’ childhood reading was mostly focused on the Bible. While his parents didn’t read to him the way he reads to his kids, he was a hard worker in school. At one point when he intimated his own work here is like a drop in the bucket, maybe 20 minutes per child in his barber chair, we talk about how significant even small increments can be when part of a whole.
“It’s kind of like when I was a kid reading the Bible,” Holmes says. “I would read three verses at a time. Eventually that turns into a whole book.”
He really does see the enormous impact it could have if salons across the country decided to offer a program like what they’re doing at Spark. The vision is coming to life. It’s all in the details.
“When I meet these kids I get the feeling a lot of them are not reading every day,” Holmes says. “I had a 10-year-old kid in my chair. He knows all the video games and how to work an iPhone, but can’t read a sentence.”
But then there are those others.
“I have an example of a kid that just didn’t give up,” he says. “He could barely read. I helped him with the words. I asked him questions to see if he knew what he was reading. He comprehended it even though he struggled with the reading. That was kind of cool. He finished the whole book. I had to give him kudos for that.”
Holmes sees clearly that kids can be anything they want if you just help them open their minds. Through the Black Men Coalition and now through his role as the storybook barber, he reaches out to youths and their parents to illuminate their path toward careers.
As for that jog through Dubuque not so long ago, he is amazed at what has transpired since.
“Be careful what you wish for,” he says. “It might not come the way you expect it.”
By Nancy Colasurdo
