Get a haircut, give a glass of water

When Kathy Kuss signed up to sponsor a Haitian child through the International Child Care Ministries five years ago, she had no way of anticipating the earthquake that would soon hit the island nation and its horrific consequences.

After the disaster struck, she received bad news: her sponsored child and the girl’s family were missing. The family was eventually discovered, safe and sound. However, the storm was not over yet — for the Haitians lucky enough to survive the earthquake and the subsequent hurricanes, the real horror had just begun.

Many had been rendered homeless by the natural disasters, and the lack of clean water was rapidly killing off people by the thousands, the majority of them children. It was upon hearing about these tragedies that Kuss, a Batavia hair salon owner, decided something had to be done—thus, “Haircuts for Haiti” was born.

“(The disaster) was all over the news and it was very frightening,” she says. “What I kept reading was that the water situation was so disgusting. There was no water there. I kept thinking, ‘What can I do to help?’ ”

The answer came to her in the form of an article about Sawyer Water Filters.

“There’s a lot of disease right now in Haiti that they have not seen for decades, like typhoid fever and dysentery, and the reason is because all this bacteria is in their water now,” she explains.

“That’s happening because people are not back into homes and there is no sanitation in place there yet, and disease bacteria is in the water again. This filter will actually take that bacteria out, and it will take out dirt and debris also. You get a clean glass of water.”

The filters that Kuss hopes to purchase will be sent to Haitian schools — or rather, what remains of them.

According to her research, “schools are particularly affected. ICCM sponsors children in Christian schools, and our sponsorships pay the fees for the children to go to the school and buy their lunches and books and education. When I was looking into this, they said that many of the schools had been demolished by the earthquakes. They were holding the schools in tents but there wasn’t any clean water for the kids.”

These lifesaving devises are, unfortunately, not free — each filter system costs $50. To raise enough money to send “many, many” filters to the children, Kuss has organized “Haircuts for Haiti,” an all-day fundraiser where people can get a haircut and make a donation.

This is Kuss’s first time organizing a “cut-a-thon,” but she has participated in one before and speaks highly of the experience:

“It’s really a lot of fun because obviously you have a large group of hairdressers and barbers. People love doing things like this because they really feel like they’re doing something to help.”

The 11 hairdressers and barbers will be at Northgate Free Methodist Church (located at 350 Bank St. Road in Batavia) from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, June 23  in the south campus gymnasium. A Sawyer Water Filter will be on display at the event.

If you are unable to attend but wish to make a donation, you can make a check out to Northgate Free Methodist Church with the memo line of “Sawyer Water Filter Fund” and send it to:

Northgate Free Methodist Church, 8160 Bank St. Road, Batavia, NY 14020.