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Signature’s free haircuts for veterans ‘lets them know someone is thinking about them’

Don Coble, Managing Editor
Posted 7/10/19

ORANGE PARK – Although Shirley Eady’s Signature’s Hair Design Academy is open seven days a week, she reserves Mondays for a special clientele – veterans.

Eady, along with other …

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Signature’s free haircuts for veterans ‘lets them know someone is thinking about them’


Posted

ORANGE PARK – Although Shirley Eady’s Signature’s Hair Design Academy is open seven days a week, she reserves Mondays for a special clientele – veterans.

Eady, along with other hairstylists, offer free haircuts to everyone who’s served in the military at her shop at 1115 Blanding Blvd., Suite 204.

“We’ve dedicated Mondays to our veterans,” she said.

Eady freelanced as a hairstylist for the Jacksonville Jaguars cheerleading squad, the ROAR, in 2017, and she's worked with local beauty pageants.

Signature’s Hair Design Academy is a full-service multi-cultural salon which caters to the needs of everyone. Eady has worked in the cosmetology industry for 26 years, and has served as a professor of barbering, cosmetology, skin and nails for 24 years. She also has worked with various academies, including Florida State Community College, a lead stylist and educator at Toni and Guy, Regency Beauty School, Orange Park Beauty Academy, Riverside Beauty Academy and Florida Career College. She also teaches one day a week at Community Barber School.

Mondays, however, have become a labor of love.

“I wanted to give back to the veterans,” she said. “While we’re sleeping at night, these men and women are risking their lives for us. Giving them something as simple as a haircut lets them know someone is thinking about them.”

She also offers discounts to senior citizens Monday-through-Friday.

Her upbeat hair styles and prices aren’t the only reason her salon is rapidly growing. She is dedicated to the mission of changing the lives of those who cross the threshold of the creatively-decorated salon by offering her customers the full package of a hair style, nails, eyebrows, eye lashes and facials. Signature’s even has a tea bar for customers while they relax under the dryer.

Eady said she is “driven to stay true to the mission of the salon: which is to strive to provide a heavenly experience by providing a relaxing environment in which each hair stylist and or technician can create beautiful and elegant designs of originality while maintaining a clean, professional atmosphere where the entire person can be nurtured.”

Eady provides hair styling and makeup for women going through transitional housing, as well as collecting donations for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Her next project is to collect school supplies.

“We’re going to collect pens, pencils, paper, notebooks – everything a child needs for school,” she said.

To find others who are making an impact in Clay County, visit https://www.claytodayonline.com/stories/contact-information-for-clay-county-non-profit-organizations.