“We’re not trying
to make the barbers
doctors or public
health professionals.
We’re trying to make
them that voice in the
community.”
CR | Page No. 54 | Winter 2009
Carolina Department of Health and
Environmental Control.
Currently in a pilot stage, Shop
Talk is a sweeping collaboration.
Partners include the University
of South Carolina’s Center for
Colon Cancer Research, the South
Carolina Cancer Alliance, the
South Carolina Gastroenterology
Association, the American Cancer
Society’s South Atlantic Division,
and beauty industry insiders
Tia Brewer-Footman and Gerald
Footman, the owners of hair etc.
magazine and trade expo.
The organizers hope to expand
the program after the pilot wraps
up this March. But already, three
four-hour sessions in Columbia,
Charleston and Greenville have
trained an estimated 130 hair care
professionals about colorectal
cancer and how to raise the issue
with their clients. By the end of the
project’s pilot phase, coordinators
estimate that stylists and barbers
will have reached out to more than
2,500 community members about
colorectal cancer. Many of these
stylists and barbers have also
asked their clients to sign a blue-and-white pledge card, on which
they promise to get screened or to
talk to a friend or family member
about the disease.
Linda Respress, who owns
Linda R Barber and Beauty in
North Charleston, is gunning to
win the prize for the stylist who
turns in the most pledge cards: a
trip for two to Los Angeles. She
has already collected more than
100 cards. The top-collecting shop
in each of three regions will be
featured on five billboards.
In Respress’ shop, Paul
Simmons, a barber since 1965
who is known for his old-school
techniques, including soothing
clients’ faces with warm, moist
towels, gave Anthony Gethers
a trim on a sunny Carolina fall
afternoon.
Gethers, who regularly gets a
colonoscopy, is pleased that his
barber is teaching people about
colorectal cancer. “I thought it was
a good idea, because a lot of black
men don’t take the time to go to
the doctor and take care of what
they have to take care of,” he says.
“Nine out of 10 men come into a
barbershop, so what better place
to start?”
Mr. Paul, as clients call the
barber, agrees. “You hear it all,” he
says. “All the stories, problems and
whatever, it comes through here,
so this is a good place.”
MAKING THE CUT: LAUNCHING
A SALON INITIATIVE
Reaching out to communities
about cancer through salon-based programs is not new.
Similar breast cancer efforts go
back at least 15 years. Five years
ago, Virgil Simons, the founder
and president of the Prostate
Net, a nonprofit group, launched
a national barbershop-based
outreach effort to encourage
prostate cancer screening. More
than 4,000 barbers and 172
medical centers worldwide are
partners in what is now known as
the Barbershop Initiative.
“Barbershops—in particular as
they relate to black men—are
social clubs,” Simons says.
