Beyoncé and her business partner mom, Tina Knowles, have joined forces to give back to the community. Drawing upon Bey’s celebrity and big heart and Tina’s cosmetology background, the pair have opened the Beyoncé Cosmetology Center at the Phoenix House Career Academy, located in Brooklyn, N.Y.
The pop superstar first came to know the Phoenix House, the nation’s leading nonprofit provider of substance abuse and prevention services, when she was preparing for the role of Etta James in the 2008 film, Cadillac Records. She was so moved by the experience, she donated her entire salary from the production.
The Beyoncé Cosmetology Center, founded to help people addled by drug and alcohol addiction, will offer a seven-month cosmetology training course for adult men and women, teaching the theory and practical skills that the recovering addicts need to pass the New York State cosmetology licensure exam. Beyoncé will fund the project.
She fought back tears recalling the days when Tina owned a popular Houston beauty salon and how it touched so many lives:
“I remember my mother’s hair salon and the stories all the women would tell. How they laughed and cried together and left looking beautiful. I loved spending time at the salon,” said Beyoncé, choking up.
As Beyoncé is a spokesperson for L’Oréal Paris, the company is generously providing all makeup, skin care and hair care products.
Tina Knowles recalled how some of the stylists in her salon struggled with addiction and other problems, but when they got behind the styling chair they could “throw down” with the best of stylists and how the trade changed their lives.
“We all make mistakes, but as I learned from my daughter, it’s not how you fall down, but how you get up,” she said. –gerald radford
