At this Federal Way teen center, learning to cut hair is ‘like a flex’

FEDERAL WAY, Wash. – There’s a special feeling when you leave your favorite barbershop after a friendly conversation and a fresh cut. Like some of your stress has been trimmed away, along with your hair.

And Ronaldo Sevilla knows exactly the right word to describe the sensation.

“Blessed,” said Sevilla, 16, who graduated last month from a barbering class at a teen center operated by the Boys & Girls Clubs of King County.

The Federal Way High School sophomore signed up for the 10-week workforce-readiness program to get paid (participants earned $800) and because he wants to become a barber, so he can make customers happy.

“I want to make people feel that way,” Sevilla said on the second-to-last day of the class, practicing with electric clippers on a mannequin’s hair. “I want people to come to me knowing that I’m about to bless them up.”

Across the same sunlit room, other kids buzzed with trimmers and snipped with shears, clenching their eyebrows as they concentrated on their craft. Sing-song raps by Bryson Tiller tumbled out of a wireless speaker.

Since 2005, the Ron Sandwith Teen Center has been a safe place for kids to hang out after school, do homework and play sports like basketball. But this was the first time the center had hosted an actual barbering class.

It came about naturally, said Duwayne Le’i, the center’s operations director.

“We started out with a little barber chair in the office” a few years ago, Le’i said, because an employee happened to know how to cut hair. The employee, Najae Townsend, gave trims for free to the center’s kids. Up to 10 each week.

“I noticed there would always be kids watching me,” Townsend recalled. “They were like, ‘I really want to learn how to cut hair, too.’ ”

When Townsend left to work at a different Boys & Girls Clubs site, Le’i moved her barber chair into an activity room that was being used as a music studio. He thought the teens might lose interest in barbering. But they didn’t.

“They started cutting hair on their own,” Le’i said.

That led to something more this winter, when the club’s YouthForce division linked the center up with Toby Johnson, a local barber who had worked with kids at other venues, like the club’s Rainier Vista site in Seattle.

Thinking back to the Boys & Girls Clubs programs that kept him out of trouble as a kid, Johnson teaches under the umbrella of YouthForce, which prepares teens for college and careers with workshops and internships. A separate YouthForce program in Federal Way is dedicated to aerospace manufacturing.

To pay for the Federal Way barbering class, the club used federal funds from the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, said Jessica Summerton-Moore, YouthForce’s program director. The kids earned money, honed skills and received case management from Summerton-Moore and from Townsend, who returned to the center to help.

The WIOA funds are meant to serve kids dealing with challenges like homelessness, disabilities, foster care, teenage parenthood and involvement with the legal system, Summerton-Moore said. The Federal Way barbering class had spots for 16 kids; dozens more applied, she said.

Barbering may not be as lucrative as aerospace manufacturing, but it’s a vocation that teens are familiar with, Summerton-Moore said.

“It’s so tangible,” she said. “We just want to expose them to options.”

Johnson began by teaching the kids some basic techniques, like parting and sectioning hair, and by introducing them to the tools of the trade.

“The clippers. The guards. The trimmers. The shears,” said Mags Garcia, 15.

The students practiced on mannequins, learning how to turn messy edges into clean lines. “Four, three, two, one,” said Anthony Altamirano, 14, listing some of the clipper guard sizes that barbers can deploy to cut fades.

The teens also went on a field trip to Johnson’s barbershop in Auburn, Detailed Experience, and they learned about managing money.

“There’s the business side of this, too,” Johnson said. “Some of us, when you have $100 in your hand, you’re probably going to spend that $100. So I just talk to them about how you’ve got to pay bills … pay taxes. Stuff like that.”

For the last couple of sessions, the kids ditched the mannequins for real people, bringing their brothers and sisters to the center to get cuts.

Garcia pulled her fingers through her sister’s hair, admiring her work.

“It’s easy because it’s fun,” she said. “I want my first job to be at a barbershop so I can earn money for all the things I want to do.”

Alaisha McClean, 17, combed her brother’s hair, then started buzzing. She and the other kids got to take their tools home at the end of the program.

“I’ve wanted to cut hair since I was like 12 years old, because I saw Najae cut hair and I wanted to do it,” said McClean, from Decatur High School, who also hopes to learn how to braid so she can someday open a hair salon.

The Boys & Girls Clubs plans to offer more barbering classes and guide kids into an apprenticeship, which is one route to obtain a state license. The Federal Way center may even launch a “community cuts” program with free or cheap cuts by kids, under Johnson’s supervision.

Some kids who skip or struggle at school come alive behind a barber chair, maybe because cutting hair is artistic and a way to connect with other people, Johnson said. A good barber can be a bit like a therapist, Townsend added.

Altamirano said learning how to cut hair has boosted his confidence.

“Just the thought of being called a barber,” he said, “is like a flex.”