The 23rd annual Malibu summertime benefit, the Cut-A-Thon, will lop lots of locks for labor.
By Ward Lauren / Special to The Malibu Times
Malibu’s annual late-summer tonsorial benefit extravaganza, the Bernie and Hillary Safire Salon Cut-A-Thon, is set to fill the Malibu Country Mart park with all the noise, music, fun and fanfare of a county fair from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. this Sunday, sponsor Bernie Safire announced. Funds raised at this year’s event, the 23rd in the series, will benefit the nonprofit Malibu Community Labor Exchange.
Combs and scissors at the ready, Safire’s staff of expert hair stylists will stand by to give professional cuts and trims for $30, first-come, first-shorn. While this is the main event of the day, several other activities and attractions are scheduled to keep Cut-A-Thon-goers, young and old alike, entertained while they await their turns in the barber chair, Safire said.
“We always have a couple surprises,” he said. “This year it’s a magician and mentalist, Tony MacLaren, who will be strolling around the park from 11:30 until one o’clock, demonstrating some amazing feats of his art. The donation price is new this year, too, [$5 higher] but it’s still a bargain. In fact, given the price of gas today I think it’s the best gift in town.”
A raffle and a silent auction will also take place during the day offering items donated by Malibu residents, shops and restaurants. Raffle tickets will be offered at $10 each for four prizes from Malibu Computers: an Apple 13-inch, 2.0GHz MacBook, valued at $1,299, and three Nanos 2GB iPods, each loaded with 500 songs.
The silent auction will offer a six-day, six-night trip to England, one-week condo vacations to Palm Springs and Aspen, Colorado, and various jewelry, dining, entertainment and fashion items.
The afternoon will also feature some local musicians, as yet unscheduled, who will perform in addition to the band The Homewreckers, Safire said.
Honorary co-chairpersons of the day’s program will be Thomas Gottschalk and familiar Malibu personalities Dick Van Dyke and Martin Sheen. All are friends of the Malibu Community Labor Exchange, said Suzelle Smith, president of the board of directors of the Exchange.
Gottschalk hosts a combination talk and game show, “Wetten Das?” [Would you bet on that?], in which celebrities appear and compete in zany stunts, Smith said. Gottschalk is probably the most famous TV celebrity in any German-speaking country, she said.
“He’s more famous than Tom Cruise, Bill Clinton and Jay Leno put together. He moved to Malibu about 10 years ago because he was mobbed by the paparazzi over there,” she said. “He literally cannot walk down the street.”
Gottschalk lives in Malibu with his family and flies to Europe once a month to put on his show. He and Smith met as members of the board of trustees of Viewpoint, the private school in Calabasas attended by both their children.
Smith said she was delighted in the choice of her favorite charity as beneficiary of the Cut-A-Thon for the first time.
“From my perspective,” she said, “the best thing about it is that the Labor Exchange is distinctly a Malibu charity. A lot of local people volunteer. People have come down and delivered food, Charlie Sheen has made lunches, some of the Pepperdine students have helped teach people English.
“We really operate on a shoestring,” Smith added. “We’re very much in need of funds. I’ve known Bernie Safire for years, so when I suggested us for the Cut-A-Thon he thought it was a great idea.”
The Malibu Community Labor Exchange was created to establish a day worker hiring center as a convenient, organized and humane alternative to day workers gathering on public street corners. It opened its doors and hosted its first work lottery on Aug. 31, 1993.
The MCLE board is made up of volunteers and active participants from Malibu’s political, educational, business and religious community. Current members along with Smith are Mona Loo, executive director; Connee Russo, vice president; Pamela Shatsky, secretary/treasurer, and Oscar Mondragon, center director.
“The fundamental purpose of the Exchange,” Smith said, “is to connect jobless people, who are sometimes jobless and homeless, with employers who need help.
Many times when people get a job through the Exchange, they join the work force permanently and never come back. They get taken out of the jobless ranks for good.
“And not only do we get people off the streets,” Smith continued, “when we’ve had disasters in Malibu, workers from the Labor Exchange have been some of the first to help in the fires and where there has been flooding. In any kind of a disaster, they volunteer their services.”
The Malibu Community Labor Exchange office is located in a trailer at 23595 Civic Center Way, at the west end of the Courthouse and Malibu Public Library parking lot. Further information about the Exchange is available on the organization’s Web site, www.malibulaborexchange.org.