A fresh cut, a fresh start: Mobile barber trailer offers free haircuts to the homeless

LAKELAND, Fla. - Something as simple as a haircut can provide a fresh start for someone, but for the homeless, a haircut can be too expensive and challenging to receive.

A nonprofit in Lakeland, Worth and Purpose, is offering free haircuts out of a mobile barbershop in the parking lot of Gospel Village, which is a tiny home community for the chronically homeless.

Travis Doodles is the owner and a barber of 20 years. The two-chair barber trailer was just donated to him; however, he doesn't just offer haircuts to the homeless or anyone who really needs one. He offers free clothes and rides to job interviews as well.

"Our nonprofit does a lot of things from buying a sandwich and making someone's day better and getting someone off the streets permanently," said Doodles. "We build them up, we give them a fresh haircut. Through that process, we build that relationship. We help them get jobs and there's just nothing like a fresh haircut. It's like a vitamin. Makes you feel good. It's like a fresh start."

Rick Higham was homeless in Lakeland more than a year ago, and before that, he was hardcore homeless for nearly a decade.

"I had worked my whole life, but fell off a roof and shattered my leg. Never really recovered," said Higham. "Work was hard and I was getting up there in age and had to do what I had to do to survive."

Around a year ago, Doodles pulled up in an ice cream van and gave Higham a free sandwich and put him in a hotel for a few days. The interaction was posted on Doodles' YouTube channel and his millions of followers donated money to buy Higham a trailer home so he could get off the streets.

It was the beginning of a lifelong friendship.

"You're not going to walk into a business knowing you don't smell too good or look too good," said Higham. "Don't have the money. There's no judgment with Travis. You need it, I've got it."

For right now, the barber shop is by appointment only, but Doodles says if they get enough barbers on board they can get a normal schedule going.

"God has changed my life so much and that just overflows into everything I do now, so really that's why I do it. I just love God and I want people to feel his love," said Doodles.

For Higham, services like this are a tremendous blessing.

"Being homeless for many, many years, you look forward to people like this and there's no strings attached. If you want it, here it is. If you don't, that's fine."

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