With a pair of scissors in his hand, and a client in his chair, it looks to all the world like Daniel Rita is cutting hair at Jewelz and Company Salon on J Street in Modesto.
In Rita's mind, though, it looks a bit different.
"For me, doing hair is yoga, it's therapy," Rita said.
Rita says going to beauty school a year-and-a-half ago, and eventually landing a job as a hair stylist, are what helped him get control of an increasingly out-of-control life.
Rita decided to start giving something back to society. This is why, every Sunday for the past few months he, along with a group of friends, can be found in San Francisco's Civic Center Plaza.
While the friends set up a table, start making sandwiches, and hand them out to the hungry and homeless, Rita takes his folding chair and opens it up 50 feet away, then pulls out his scissors and some battery-powered clippers. "I've got to keep the hair away from the food," Rita explained.
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Rita then begins giving haircuts to anyone who needs or wants one, for free.
"It's a karma campaign," he said. "It's not about the money. It's about the happiness."
Happiness is something, Rita confesses, that has only come to him later in life.
He grew up in the East Bay and, in what he now admits was a rash decision, dropped out of college and enlisted in the Navy.
As a gay man, it was an arrangement that didn't end well. He left the military early, eventually finding himself living in Florida, battling addiction, HIV positive, and flat broke.
"I had $60 in cash and $200 in food stamps when I came back to California," Rita said.
He said he went to beauty school to fulfill a promise he made to a friend years early. He added that it was a key to turning his life around.
Free haircuts are Rita's way of trying to encourage others to do the same.
"A good haircut makes you feel better about yourself," Rita said.
Share Brunch and Haircuts is what Rita and his friends call their Sunday gatherings. "A meal and a haircut, that goes further than any dollar we could give," Rita said.
In a short time, word has quickly spread among San Francisco's needy.
"When I show up, there's already a line of people waiting for a trim or a shave," Rita said. Drawing from his own personal experiences, he talks to his clients about addiction and financial struggles. He hopes that they leave with a better feeling about themselves, and a better outlook about their future.
"If I can help just one person change their life," Rita said, "it's worth it."
Rita said he would love to expand his operation, one day converting a trailer into a mobile haircutting station, enabling him to bring his services to more people in more places around the Bay Area as well as Modesto.
