Cheryl Eid lives on the streets in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood, and on a brisk November Saturday morning, she was in the hall at St. Thomas of Canterbury Church, 4827 N. Kenmore Ave., having breakfast and getting her hair cut.

“I just want a trim,” she said. “You know, when you’re living on the street, it’s hard to maintain hygiene, appearance.”

Eid was one of many Uptown residents who, on Nov. 14, took advantage of free haircuts arranged by Radley Alcantara, an archdiocesan seminarian studying at the University of St. Mary of the Lake/ Mundelein Seminary. This was the second year Alcantara arranged the free haircuts at the church. He calls it Angel Hair Ministries.

The idea came a few years ago, when he was studying Spanish in Ecuador and helped out at a Franciscan parish that had a ministry of providing free haircuts to the poor in the community. They also provided meals.

“When I came back a couple of summers ago I said, ‘I wanna do this in Chicago,’” Alcantara told the Catholic New World.

He chose November to hold the event because it’s usually cold outside and the gathering would provide an opportunity for residents to get warm. Alcantara also wanted to build community so started the event with breakfast and ended with lunch.

Volunteers helped with all parts of the event, including washing hair and helping people peruse donated coats and clothing. Everything for the event was donated — from the food and decorations to the professional salon chairs and hair cutting supplies. Alcantara also raised funds to buy anything extra that they needed. Volunteers — including a few seminarians — cut hair for the morning.

“I practiced cutting hair on the seminarians so I could cut hair well here,” Alcantara said.

St. Thomas of Canterbury already has an outreach ministry that includes a soup kitchen twice a week, a food pantry and a clothes closet, so for Father Tirso Villaverde, parish pastor, Alcantara’s idea fit right in.

“They have been very appreciative of it because they need it and just the personal attention that they’ve been getting, it’s something that many of these people usually don’t get,” Villaverde said of the people they serve. “These are God’s people and these are the ones who are forgotten.”

Cheryl McNary came for breakfast at 6 a.m. and was staying all morning and through lunchtime. She’s a regular at the church. What did the event mean to her?

“It means the world to me. If it means that much to me, can you imagine what it means to everyone else? I do have a home. I’m kind of stable,” she said. “But there’s a lot of people who have no home.”