Parade Seeks Funds, Volunteers

The organizing committee for this year’s Fourth of July parade met Monday evening at Mort’s Oak Room, and sent the call out for more donations and more volunteer workers the day of the big event. ‘We have to raise at least $65,000 this year just to break even,’ said PAPA president Bobbie Farberow, owner of Mort’s Deli. ‘We’re well short of that goal, with less than a month to go, so I hope people will step up and provide financial support.’ (See the first installment of Parade Donors on page 6. Checks made out to the Palisades Americanism Parade Association can be sent to PAPA at P.O. Box 1776, Pacific Palisades, CA 90272.) Board member Rob Weber came up with a new fundraising idea this year, thanks to cooperation from Gelson’s. The Palisades market has given PAPA permission to place ‘Support July 4th Parade and Fireworks’ donation boards at each checkout stand, beginning this week. These boards hold three coupons’$2 (red), $5 (white) and $10 (blue)’that can simply be torn off and handed to the cashier. The selected donation will then be added to one’s grocery bill. ‘One hundred percent of the proceeds will go to the parade,’ said Weber, an attorney who has lived in the Palisades with his wife, Karyn, just three years. o o o Meanwhile, PAPA People, the organization of volunteers that works to insure that the parade works smoothly, needs more volunteers. Those interested are encouraged to attend a PAPA People meeting tonight at 7 p.m. in Mort’s Oak Room on Swarthmore. ‘Our parade is run strictly by volunteers in the community,’ said member Carolyn Haselkorn, who suggested some ways in which people can help out the day of the parade: provide traffic control on designated streets between 11 a.m. and 1:30 p.m., provide traffic control at the end of the parade at the entrance to the Palisades Recreation Center, help at Ralphs’ parking lot at 8 a.m., and work at the VIP parking lot at the Washington Mutual corner between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. Please call Haselkorn at 454-0154 or Hoppy Mehterian at 573-9331 if you can help, or simply come to tonight’s meeting.