Darlington barber shop offering free back-to-school haircuts to children
Oakley's say it is to help struggling families
A barber shop in Darlington says it is helping struggling families by offering free haircuts for their children.
It is so they can go back to school feeling confident as many are facing financial difficulties.
Craig Egan runs Oakley's on Bondgate and said: "We know that the cost of living crisis is worsening and the return to school can put a lot of financial pressure on families. At Oakley's we're lucky enough to be in a position where we can do our bit and try to erase this pressure for as many families as possible.
"The last time we actually did this we had a massive amount of success. I think we were actually caught a little bit off guard with how many people were wanting to be a bit part of it. I think originally we pledged to 12 to 14 haircuts and we ended up doing around 50.
"The sad reality is that this offer is needed throughout the country. We think that Darlington is pretty representative of towns in the UK at the minute. There's a lot of hardworking families who are starting to feel the squeeze and struggling to make ends meet.
"We hope that other barbers will be inspired to offer something similiar. The more children that return to school feeling confidence with a new haircut then obviously that's better. we don't know people's financial situations.
"I think it's just easy to think that every child will have a new haircut going into a new year at school but sometimes when it's between food and a haircut, food's going to win, so we're just trying to do our bit. There's no pressure on any other shops or salons to do theirs but we're just fortunate enough that we can offer this."