News · Salon
1,907 free haircuts: a year in the salon
The salon's second full year: 1,907 cuts, 14 students through floor certification, and a two-week wait for Saturdays.
The student salon gave 1,907 free haircuts in the 2024–25 year, up from 1,412 the year before. Fourteen students passed floor certification. Two of them are now working as salon assistants on Saturdays, which is a paid role and the first time we have had a path from student to staff entirely inside the program.
The numbers
| Metric | 2023–24 | 2024–25 |
|---|---|---|
| Free haircuts | 1,412 | 1,907 |
| Students on the floor | 9 | 14 |
| Licensed instructor hours | 620 | 880 |
| Clients not connected to STENCH | 22% | 34% |
| Saturday wait | 4 days | 14 days |
Why it grew
Two reasons. We added a second chair at St. Johns in January, and we changed the schedule so that Saturday appointments could be booked two weeks out instead of one. The second change sounds small and doubled Saturday utilization, because families plan haircuts around payday, not around our convenience.
What is still hard
We turn away anyone under 5, anyone who wants color or chemical services, and anyone who arrives intoxicated. Those are licensing and safety lines. The under-5 rule is the one that makes people angry, and we understand why: a toddler's first haircut is exactly the kind of thing a student salon should be good at. We are working on a separate toddler clinic with a licensed instructor running the chair and a student assisting, but it is not ready.
The haircut is free. The conversation costs you twenty minutes and you leave with a better haircut than you paid for last time.
There is a chair with your kid's name on it.
Free after-school for grades 4–8, six sites, no tuition, no test.