If you’ve been following our recent local business profiles to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month, you’ll get a great selection of our favorite go-to restaurants in the heavily LatinX influenced Lower East Side neighborhood. But for this year’s last installment, we wanted to focus on a local barbershop, Matter of Instinct, with an inspiring story of giveback to at-risk youth,
Owner and founder, Ruben values the customers that come through the door and most importantly his barbers, Rosie and shop manager Marshall. The three of them come together to donate lightly used barber supplies to DR.
Rosie, born in the Dominican Republic and raised in the BX, wanted to give back to her beloved country after once visiting and stumbling across a local barber class. She discovered young orphans cutting hair using cooking tools to trim and cut. “They just wanted a chance to cut hair and used whatever tools they had available to get the job done,” says Rosie. “It broke my heart.”
She went back to NYC and immediately told Ruben and Marshall of what she witnessed. From that moment, Rosie, Ruben and Marshall began collecting barber supplies to send over to the Dominican Republic. Once Covid lockdown ended, Rosie was able to take the supplies over to DR. The kids were super grateful for what they had received.
Matter of Instinct donates barber supplies and lightly worn sneakers to kids in DR multiple times throughout the year. You too can contribute by bringing donations to the shop anytime.
