The iconic barber shop Foltos Tonsorial Parlor, at 7 E. Wilson St. in Batavia, is once again preparing for its annual Chop Around the Clock fundraising event set to begin at 4 p.m. Friday.
For 24 hours, owner Craig Foltos, 73, and staff will be offering haircuts to patrons that come in any hour of the day or night, with proceeds going to Ronald McDonald House, which works to support families with sick children.
Chop Around the Clock began back in 1989 and over the years the event had raised over $400,000 for Ronald McDonald House, Foltos has said.
“I started this back then in the 1980s and had this idea after watching the ‘Dick Van Dyke Show’ where he stayed up as a radio disc jockey all night, and I grew up in a family where you help people. I got to a place where, financially, I could help people, and I said I could stay up and cut hair and make it a party,” Foltos said. “I just wanted to have fun and see what happens and, like anything else, a friendship evolves and people wanted to start bringing baked goods or raffle something off.”
Foltos said people often walk in off the street to make donations and that he has been touched by some of the smallest gifts from people.
“I had an elderly lady come in many years ago. It was a really hot day and she drove from her house to donate $5. That meant more to me than a company giving me $1,000,” he said. “It’s what she could do to help out. That was spectacular.”
Foltos said that, after the first year of the event, he went to lay eyes directly on a Ronald McDonald House, which gave him an entirely new perspective.
“I had never been to a Ronald McDonald House. I went and they told me, they would prefer I come in and see things rather than just donating,” he said. “I went in and I was single at the time. The house manager said to me, ‘You know Craig, we’re looking for a barber here,’ so I said I could come in and donate one night a month and cut hair. So I started cutting hair there and got more involved.”
Regarding the money raised, Foltos insists he “never thinks of it in terms of numbers.”
“I knew it would be successful, but when it started adding up to hundreds of thousands of dollars, you become aware of who you have helped and the number of families,” he said. “But in conjunction with that and, more importantly what I’ve gained over time, it’s not so much the money anymore that matters to me.
“It’s seeing young kids watch their families participate in something like this,” Foltos said. “Hopefully, maybe as they get older, they’ll say, ‘Remember that old guy that did this? If he did something like this maybe I can do something this.’ If you don’t have empathy and pitch in then we all just sit and like live in blocks, and that’s not good. It’s the connection of community and people feeling like where they live matters.”
There will be two or three barbers on the floor at all times during the fundraiser, he said. The majority of foot traffic comes on the first day of the event from 7 p.m. until midnight, and then Saturday from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m., Foltos said.
“From midnight until 2 a.m. – some years, you’ll do 20% of your business,” he said. “Some people, they are night owls, and for some it’s a lot like Christmas and New Year’s and that staying up late that you feel good about because you don’t normally do it.”
The event always includes auxiliary entertainment which again will feature an ice-cream eating contest and a “Simon Says World Championship” where, Foltos insists, “legends will be made.”
“We’ll also have music and face-painting which the kids love,” he said. “We also get lots of food baskets – between 50 and 75 – and other things that are donated and we’ll have a raffle for those.”
The event draws about 75% repeat customers, some of whom, Foltos said, “have been coming for like, 30 years.”
“Maybe they’ll come in with a pie that they baked. They just come to contribute,” he said. “The community feeling is one of the nicest things that you come to understand.”
Those words were echoed by Beth Walker, executive director of the Batavia MainStreet group, who noted that local businesses are happy to support Foltos’ effort.
“I really think it’s great how many businesses donate raffle baskets. It’s something really great for our community that Craig is taking the time to organize this ever year,” she said of Foltos. “Batavia is community-focused and I’m not surprised. I’m just surprised Craig can stay up all night.”
David Sharos is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.
