CHICAGO (CBS) — Rob Hannon was a barber who loved his community and worked just as hard to help children – but in the end, it was gun violence that took him away from his Lawndale neighborhood.
Now, his barbershop – the Creative Salon at 3946 W. 16th St. at Pulaski Road – has ignited a new drive for young men and women in the neighborhood.
Inside the barbershop on Monday, we found Danny Fields.
“I think it was a flyer. I don’t know where, but I saw it just walking around,” Fields told CBS 2’s Jermont Terry. “So I came.”
The 16-year-old is one of a handful of youngsters who signed up for the Young Barbers Program to get hands-on barber training before they are eligible to attend barber school.
Creative Scott started the program a few years back.
“You want to thank God you’re here today, because of some of us didn’t make it,” Scott told the teens.
As the youngsters signed up to learn about a new trade, the reality is one of the biggest supporters of the program – Hannon – is no longer here. Yet his spirit is just as bright as the lights in the remodeled barbershop where is life ended abruptly, but his love for the community continues.
“I said my prayer, and I hear Rob patting me on the back saying, ‘Keep going, Cre,’” Scott said.
Scott admits pressing on isn’t easy.
“I think about Rob every day,” he said.
It is especially harder knowing that since a barber chair in the shop was riddled with bullet holes and Hannon was killed along with customer Tydrell Jackson in July – in front of women and children – there have been no arrests several weeks later.
“Of course, I want the community to be more involved into solving the case or whatever,” Scott said. “But it don’t seem like that’s happening right now.”
Yet the business owners refuse to turn their backs on the West Side community, especially when 16-year-old Fields looks at the alternative.
“Might as well – there’s nothing else to do, so I might as well come here every day and see it,” he said. “I’ve got to see it through, so I’ll see it through.”