Sunday, April 18, 2004
Discounts are being offered in celebration of the salon's 20th anniversary.
Saundra Mann recalls her mother giving all the girls in the neighborhood perms for Easter when she was young.
"My mom was the neighborhood lady with the little blue perm rods, and she ... would get all the girls together for Easter, and we all got curls. She worked midnight turn at a cafeteria but hair was just part of what she did. So for me, it was just natural to do hair," she said.
Mann, owner of Sandi's Family Haircare, said she has "lived and breathed hair" since she was 14 and never considered any other field. She began her career teaching at Raphael's Beauty School and later worked at Higbee's salon. When that closed, she opened Sandi's on the West Side.
"I always wanted things to be a certain way with a certain professionalism and a certain atmosphere -- a combination of professional but home. I took ideas from every place I worked. ... but then I would think, 'At my place, I would do this differently,'" she said.
Milestone
Sandi's Family Haircare is celebrating its 20th anniversary this month. Mann said when she first opened the business, it was a challenge and a learning experience.
"If I had known about the thousands of hats that you actually have to wear, I might not have done what I did. Someone has come up with proof that because of the shape and size of the bumblebee, it should not be able to fly, and they said good thing nobody told the bee. That's my character: Good thing nobody told me," she said, laughing.
Mann said she likes to keep her business involved in community service, staging a "Give Up The Green" Easter Seals fund-raiser every year, donating food baskets to Mahoning County Children Services and participating in the Locks of Love campaign to donate hair to children who need wigs.
Sandi's Family Haircare also designates one day every March as "Lucky 10" day, donating all money made at the business that day to Easter Seals.
"[My employees] give up a day of wages that day for Easter Seals," she said.
What's happening
Mann is offering discounts on all products and services in honor of the shop's 20th anniversary, and she has displayed a photo timeline of the business.
Mann said she "wouldn't even think of moving" the business although the area has "taken its share of hits" over the years.
"We're here for the people that live here. We're definitely a neighborhood salon," she said.