ODENTON, MD — When Master Barber Marquis Kendrick began working with Rob's Barbershop Community Foundation (RBCF), his involvement demonstrated something that has become increasingly important to the foundation's work: a grooming professional's expertise can be used for much more than providing haircuts.
Over several years, Kendrick's relationship with RBCF has grown through multiple projects serving very different populations—from foster and adoptive families to high school students pursuing barbering careers to students facing barriers to regular grooming services.
Now, Kendrick is entering the next phase of that journey through RBCF's Hair Pair Project, where he will use the foundation's matching database to identify and create new partnerships with agencies and schools that need grooming-related services.
It Started With Foster Families
Kendrick's early work with RBCF included the Foster Parent Grooming Project, an initiative designed to address grooming challenges experienced by foster, adoptive and kinship families.
The project provided parents with hair-care education, equipment and supplies while also making professional grooming services available to children. WBAL reported on the initiative in 2021, describing how the project addressed both access to grooming services and parents' need for the knowledge and tools to care for children's hair themselves. (WBAL-TV)
RBCF's data shows that Kendrick's involvement went beyond simply providing a service.
In 2021, the Foster Parent Grooming Project recorded 202 outputs, including 12 haircuts, 163 pieces of equipment and supplies, and 27 training sessions. Participants demonstrated a 48% measured increase in grooming knowledge and a 203% increase in grooming skill.
The following year, the project continued serving foster families, with participants recording a 258% measured increase in knowledge and a 124% increase in skill.
The experience demonstrated the value of transferring professional knowledge—not merely performing a haircut, but helping another person develop the ability to care for someone's hair.
From Providing Skills to Building Careers
By 2024, Kendrick's work with RBCF had taken a different direction.
After learning that students had been waitlisted for Anne Arundel County's barbering program, Kendrick and RBCF founder Robert Cradle worked together to develop the Barber Internship Project at Kendrick's Barbershop in Odenton.
The six-month program began in February 2024 and gave students real-world barbering experience while allowing them to accumulate hours toward eligibility for Maryland's barber licensing examination. (The Baltimore Times).
For Kendrick, a barber with more than 15 years of professional experience at the time, the project was an opportunity to pass his profession to another generation.
He told WBAL that barbering can provide young people with a pathway to ownership, financial independence, and a career without necessarily requiring a college degree. (WBAL-TV)
RBCF's numbers show the scale of the training.
During 2024, the Barber Internship Project generated 285 documented outputs, including 266 training sessions and 19 pieces of equipment and supplies provided to nine students.
The project also recorded a 32% measured increase in barbering knowledge and a 183% increase in skill, while reducing the original student waitlist problem by 56%.
Training Students Who Become Licensed Barbers
The project continued in 2025.
Eight students participated in the Barber Internship Project, generating 164 documented outputs, including 144 training sessions.
Participants recorded a 50% measured increase in knowledge and a 252% increase in skill.
Most significantly, RBCF's records show that five students passed the Maryland State Board examination during that project year.
One of the earliest students was Jaiden Martin, who had initially been waitlisted for the county barbering program. WBAL documented Martin training at Kendrick's Barbershop and later reported that the experience helped inspire him to operate the student-led barber and beauty salon at Arundel High School. (WBAL-TV).
What began as a response to students who could not get into an existing program was becoming a pathway from interest → training → experience → licensure → service to others.
The Work Reaches Inside the School
Kendrick's involvement also supported RBCF's Arundel Grooming Project.
In 2025, that project recorded 463 outputs, including haircuts, hairstyles, other grooming services, equipment and supplies, and 162 training sessions.
Fourteen unduplicated students participated, while measured grooming knowledge increased by 33% and grooming skill increased by 70%.
That project represented another evolution in the model.
Students were no longer only learning a trade. They were learning skills they could use to help other students facing barriers to regular grooming services.
The approach continued into 2026, with additional training, grooming services, and supplies documented through the Arundel project.
Now Comes Hair Pair
Kendrick's next chapter with RBCF will be different again.
He is joining the Hair Pair Project, RBCF's online matching initiative that connects grooming professionals with schools, shelters, colleges, universities, government agencies, and community organizations seeking grooming-related partnerships.
Hair Pair was developed to address two connected problems: people served by these organizations who lack access to regular grooming services, and organizations that lack relationships with grooming professionals willing to help address those needs. (WBAL-TV).
Instead of RBCF determining every project Kendrick participates in, Hair Pair gives him the opportunity to identify potential partners, make connections, and develop new relationships based on needs identified by agencies and schools in the database.
Those relationships may result in volunteer activities, sponsored services, educational programs, recurring projects, or contractual opportunities.
For Kendrick, it represents another step in an evolving relationship with RBCF.
He first used his expertise to help families.
Then he used it to teach students.
He helped students move toward professional licensure.
His expertise helped support a school-based grooming project where students could serve other students.
And now, through Hair Pair, he will have the opportunity to use that same expertise to build partnerships of his own.
That progression illustrates one of the larger ideas behind Rob's Barbershop Community Foundation's work: a grooming professional's value isn't measured only by the number of haircuts performed.
Professional expertise can be transferred.
It can educate.
It can create careers.
It can solve community problems.
And, when combined with the right data and partnerships, it can create opportunities that extend far beyond the barber chair.
Rob's Barbershop Community Foundation manages donor-funded projects that make grooming services accessible to populations facing barriers to regular hygiene care. The foundation reports operating projects since 2000 and currently uses Hair Pair to connect grooming professionals with organizations seeking grooming services for the populations they serve. (Rob's Barbershop Community Foundation).
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