Jeanine has been a cosmetologist for 43 years, and she knows what it takes to make a person feel comfortable in twenty minutes or so. But the first time she walked into Fr. Virgil Cordano Center to offer its members hair styling at no charge, she was nervous.

“I didn’t know what to expect,” she admits. “I tend to be shy in new situations — people don’t believe it, but it’s true.”

There’s a difference between knowing your appointments at the start of a salon day and walking into a drop-in center where about 80 people come through the doors every day, all of them navigating homelessness, instability, and circumstances most of us will never face. It took three or four visits before the nervousness eased. What helped, she says, was the members themselves.

“They are so gracious. That surprised me, and it shouldn’t have.”

A Career in Beauty, Rooted in Family

Jeanine grew up around beauty. Her mother was a hairstylist who gave up the salon to raise three children but offered friends and family her styling expertise at home. A great-aunt did the same. By the time Jeanine was at La Cumbre Junior High, she had borrowed her father’s razor and was giving friends Farrah Fawcett feathers. At Santa Barbara High School she was the unofficial stylist for the drill team, doing fifteen to twenty french braids on game-day.

Her mother, who knew firsthand what it meant to stand on your feet all day, had hoped for a different path for her. But Jeanine went into the business anyway. Forty-three years as a cosmetologist. Twenty-three running her own salon, Great Lengths, where her associate Paula has worked alongside her nearly from the start.

From Loss to a New Calling

It was loss that brought her to St. Vincent’s. When her father passed away in February 2025, the familiar logic of I’ll volunteer when I retire stopped making sense. “That woke me up,” she says. “Now is the time.” She still works four days a week, but now she reserves the first Wednesday of every month reserved for the Cordano Center. 

The Ladies of Charity Connection

Her path there runs through the Ladies of Charity, one of the oldest women’s charitable organizations in the world, 400 years and counting. A friend’s mother brought her to a meeting in 2017, and through that group she met Sr. Oanh and Sr. Arthur, both Daughters of Charity. “They just make you want to do better,” she says. It was through those connections that the Cordano Center came into focus as a place where her particular skills could be useful.

One visit stays with her. A woman in her fifties, living in her car, always warm and very grateful. Being in her presence, Jeanine says, made her feel the weight of what is needed — what more all of us could do. Her Cordano Center client now looks forward to the first Wednesday of every month, knowing Jeanine will be there.

A Ripple Effect Beyond the Salon

In her own way, Jeanine is doing more, because the ripple has reached her salon. She keeps a Fr. Virgil Cordano Center donation coin box near the check-in station, and clients ask about it. One client now drops off clothes and shoes at the Cordano Center every month. What began as one stylist showing up on a Wednesday has grown into something she never quite planned.

That’s usually how it starts.

Read more volunteer stories from across St. Vincent’s.