Line 4 Line

Haircuts for reading - since 2014, every first monday of the month, oneils barber and beauty salon opens its door for boys ages 3-13 to receive free haircuts. As the scissors snip, the boys read aloud to the barbers, who guide, listen and support reading. Participants, read books, participate in steam projects, play basketball, and enjoy a healthy dinner. In 2016 the program expanded to serve public elementary and middle schools, providing free haircuts to students in exchange for reading. To date approximately 3,000 free haircuts have been provided while more than 10,000 books have been read.

Change the narrative project - an ongoing initiative that supports success within the black community. Projects include the three public art murals adorning the walls at the barber shop complex that celebrate reading, black books and community role models; clip tips, a series of videos featuring puppets, mentor barbers and community members discussing topics relevant to youth. Our community education campaign promote reading, healthy choices, using billboards to create a new narrative around what black success looks like.

449 book club - the 449 book club give diversity focused books to children, youth and adults as part of the haircut for reading program and at other community events. This program includes additional layers of incentivization that allow us to track readers participation.

Book access - a little free library sits outside the barber shop and is regularly stocked with new and used books. To date more than 4,000 books have found new homes across baton rouge. Line4line works with community groups to rehome donated books throughout city, in free little libraries, public housing sites, doctors offices and classrooms. Community lending library - line4lines library of 800+ books, for all reading levels and interests is available to community members to borrow. The collection focuses on diversity, specifically black, indigenous, people of color. An catalog of the collection is accessible on line4lines website and linked to black owned bookstores. Line4line is working with front yard bike to build a mobile bike-mobile, to expand access of books into areas of high need. Backspace - in 2019 line4line renovated a multi-purpose program space within the barbershop complex, home to our lending library and all of our community based programs, including saturday open-house, summer camps, mentoring program, workshops, trainings, community partner collaborations, and more. Life/workforce development - in 2020 line4line expanded its outreach into capitol high school transforming a classroom into a barbering and reading lab. In addition to students learning the art and business of barbering, the program offers one-on-one reading support, and a library of culturally relevant books. Students participating in this program can apply to become apprentices at oneils barbershop and line4line, providing youth with a paid career-building experience. In 2021 line4line began a mentoring program grounded in the practice of reciprocity where young people can be heard and supported. This small format program pairs our barbers with middle/high school/ alternative students for activities and outings providing opportunities to build a support network.in 2021 line4line began work to develop a mobile outreach program to provides free haircuts for reading, books, hands on creative activities as well as academic and social/emotional support. This program will operate as a free pop-up camp during the summer and will participate in community events throughout the year. Educational outreach - in addition to providing free haircuts for reading in the east baton rouge parish public and charter schools, line4line attends school events and in 2021 brought 2800 diversity focused books into 54 local elementary schools. This project was made possible by the conscious kid organization to promote conversations around race, racism and resistance and to create greater access to bipoc books within baton rouge. Partners for this project included the east baton rouge parish school system; east baton rouge parish public library and knock knock childrens museum. Details on this project can be found at httpsline4linebrorgbookprogram Partnership - in 2020 line4line joined forces with humanities amped, big buddy and front yard bikes as the angel coalition to establish the youth city lab, with the goal of creating a full service youth program facility in mid-city providing young people with access to a variety of out-of- school programs under one roof. The group is currently raising funds to renovate a historic church on government street with the plans of opening for programming in summer 2021.