Hope and Healing: Buzz Boxx
WSVN 7 News, “Hope and Healing” · By Katrina Bush and Lauren Powell · March 28, 2017
(WSVN) — Can something as simple as a haircut change your life? One South Florida organization thinks so. 7's Katrina Bush shows us how some local entrepreneurs are creating quite the “buzz.”
You'd never guess it from the smile on Michael's face, but he has faced some tough times. “My parents were drug addicts. I was born in Puerto Rico. Coming to the U.S. was my introduction to hell, because the first community I moved into was the projects,” said Michael Caraballo, founder of Talent4Change. He remembers being picked on in school because he couldn't afford nice things.
So he's helping South Florida kids clean up, one haircut at a time. “We've had plenty of kids that would tell us how important a haircut is to them. Maybe they didn't want to go to school because they're embarrassed.”
Michael doesn't run a traditional barber shop. This is a mini mobile shop inside a shipping crate called Buzz Boxx — and it is creating quite the buzz. Kids earn a free haircut by doing good in school or helping their community, and the barbers double as mentors.
Today is Clifton's turn in the barber chair. The 15-year-old lost his dad when he was 2. “Everybody in my community loves me and helps me out. I guess that's what really motivates me, too,” Clifton said. The Buzz Boxx team recently took first place in a Philanthropy Miami competition.