Raines alone would color people’s hair and do their makeup.īut then she started livestreaming the events and posting pictures to Instagram, and Beauty 2 the Streetz soon became more well known. Initially, Beauty 2 the Streetz was small, with just Raines and her children helping to hand out food, drinks, hygiene kits and beauty products. It’s a place where people have amazing hearts, but nobody can see it because they can’t see the forest for the trees.” “I went to Skid Row, I’m like, ‘Oh, this is where all the broken people are? Oh, I’ve been looking for y’all all my life,” she said. That purpose came in 2017 when Raines joined a church group on a feeding mission. Raines’ twin sister urged her to find a purpose for her pain. “You never know what anyone’s going through, you know?” “The world looked at me and thought probably the same thing they think about the homeless when they pass them by,” she said. Raines struggled for years with financial insecurity, grief and loss after the death of her young son, Demetrius. She and the other top 10 CNN Heroes honored at Sunday’s gala all receive a $10,000 cash award. And that might be the nicest touch they’ve had all day.”Īs the 2021 CNN Hero of the Year, Raines will receive $100,000 to expand her work. We had to stop doing hair, we had to stop doing barber services. That’s what was hard when the pandemic hit. “It’s not so much just giving them makeup or doing their hair, it’s also the physical touch,” Raines said. Her goal: to make the homeless feel human, whether that means a haircut, a facial, a hearty meal or a hug. Raines and her non-profit Beauty 2 the Streetz have been a mainstay on Skid Row for the past six years, providing food, clothing, and hair and makeup services to thousands of people.Įvery week, Raines and her team of volunteers set up shop and transform part of Skid Row - home to one of the nation’s largest concentrations of homeless people - into an outdoor beauty salon. Online voters selected her from among this year’s Top 10 CNN Heroes finalists. Raines was presented with the CNN Hero of the Year award Sunday night by hosts Anderson Cooper and Kelly Ripa. “I am a mother without a son and there are a lot of people in the streets without a mother - and I feel like it’s a fair exchange.” I stand before you a very broken woman,” an emotional Raines said.