The Malibu Community Labor Exchange (MCLE) board has launched another online fundraiser to help the organization and its day laborers get through the pandemic.
MCLE Board Member Cindy Miller-Perrin, Ph.D., wrote an email to The
Malibu Times, describing the needs of the exchange during the current crisis.
“The MCLE is in need of the community’s support as our workers have been significantly hard hit by COVID-19, compounded by the fact that the city decreased our funding this year by 60 percent,” Miller-Perrin wrote.
Earlier this year, MCLE applied to the City of Malibu for a General Fund Grant—as it has every year for the past few decades. For the last 27 years since its founding, the exchange has usually been awarded close to the amount it has asked for. That didn’t happen for this 2020-21 fiscal year, during which the city cut funding to many local nonprofits. While the MCLE applied for $30,000, it received only $10,000.
The coronavirus has had a huge impact on the incomes of day laborers who come to the trailer on Civic Center Way every day looking for work. The MCLE office was closed for several months during statewide Safer at Home orders, beginning in March.
“There was no work at all for many workers for a couple of months. Now that we are reopened, there are jobs coming in, but fewer than normal and almost none for women,” Miller-Perrin stated.
The MCLE’s total annual operating budget is $80,000, primarily for salary, benefits and insurance.
As of Tuesday, Aug. 18, $24,300 out of a goal of $80,000 had already been raised on the group’s new GoFundMe campaign. To donate or get more information, go to:
https://charity.gofundme.com/o/en/campaign/sustain-the-work-of-the-mcle-ensure-continued-work-for-day-laborers.