Katie Steller has her own salon. She often wheels her red chair and scissors around the city to give free haircuts.
Edward was her first lucky customer. He looked to be in his 60s. He was balding and missing a few teeth. While she was cutting his grey hair, he told her about moving closer to his adult children. Till now, Steller has offered about 30 such haircuts. These people are all living a hard time, and she realizes the power of her clean-up job.
"It's more than a haircut. " she says. "I want it to be a gateway to show value and respect, but also to get to know people. I want to build relationships. " Steller knows that a haircut can change a life. As a teen, she had a very serious illness and her hair thinned terribly. Her mother took Steller for her first professional haircut.
"To sit down and have somebody look at me and talk to me like a person and not just an illness. It helped me feel cared about and less lonely. " she says.
After that, Steller knew she wanted to have her own salon so that she could help people feel the way she had felt that day. In 2019, she began her Red Chair Project. She says,“I can't fix their problems with free haircuts, but maybe I can help them feel less lonely for a moment. "
Early this year she started the Steller Kindness Project, in which people who do acts of kindness are invited for a free haircut at Steller's salon. In exchange, they tell their stories, which Steller shares on her website. Her hope is that by reading about kind acts, others will spread their own.
So far, Steller has had people reach out from around the country.
