From the Wall Street Journal | 9/23/09 | by SARA ECKEL

Nancy Palmieri for The New York Times

NO GREENS FEE Dan Ebert, left, and Tony Mills play free at Quail Hollow.

LAST spring, a prominent businesswoman in
Lancaster, Pa., made a tearful phone call to her friend Darla
Broderick, an owner of Visage á Visage, a local day spa and salon. The
woman explained that her real estate and restaurant businesses had been
slammed by the economic downturn, and she could no longer afford to
keep her hair appointment.

 

Joshua Lott for The New York Times

WHAT STYLE Joshua Fessenden, who has been out of work two years, gets a free haircut from Giuseppe Lazzara, a k a Joe.

"She was crying and
embarrassed," said Tina Stoltzfus, Ms. Broderick's daughter and a
co-owner with her parents. "Of course, it broke our hearts, so we asked
ourselves what we could do."

The Brodericks decided to start
offering free haircuts to those who had lost jobs or were otherwise
struggling because of the recession, even providing limousine service
to anyone who didn't have transportation to the salon.

After
some local news media attention, not only were they flooded with phone
calls from the recently laid off, but they also heard from owners of
other nearby businesses - including two restaurants, a dog-grooming
service and a comedy club - who subsequently started similar free
programs for the unemployed. "It really blew up," said Ms. Stoltzfus,
41.

With the national unemployment rate close to 10 percent, the
swelling ranks of the jobless have generated an unexpected wave of
benevolence: businesses are offering freebies to laid-off workers
everywhere - and not just necessities like groceries and flu shots.
Instead, they're providing free monthly gym memberships, yoga lessons, golf rounds, therapy sessions and salon visits.

This
generosity reflects a changing attitude toward the unemployed, said
John Challenger, chief executive of the out-placement agency
Challenger, Gray and Christmas.

"There's more empathy out there
because everyone has friends and family who are caught up in this," Mr.
Challenger said. "There isn't the stigma that there used to be, because
there's so much no-fault job loss."

While the offers sometimes
generate skepticism among the unemployed, many report being pleasantly
surprised by the quality of the services and the professionalism of the
personnel.

Michael Dixon, a software engineer from Seattle who
is out of work, was prepared to be disappointed when he attended a
two-day event last week at Flint Men's Grooming, a salon in Bellevue,
Wash., that was offering free haircuts, suits and career counseling to
the jobless. "I thought it might be an up-sell, where they get you in
and then immediately put you in front of a salesperson," said Mr.
Dixon, 35.

So he was stunned when a staff member escorted him to
a room full of high-quality gently used suits and provided him with a
tailor, as well as a free shirt and tie, all of which he estimates
would have cost him $1,000 otherwise.

Michelle Immel had a
similar experience at Visage á Visage. Ms. Immel, a 41-year-old single
mother, was initially reluctant to request a free cut and blow dry.
Since losing her administrative job five months earlier, she'd had her
share of humbling experiences, like frequenting the local food bank
with her head down and her face shaded by a baseball cap. But at Visage
á Visage, only the staff members knew she was a pro bono client, and
Ms. Immel says they treated her as well as, if not better than, the
salon's paying customers, even offering to trim her 2-year-old
daughter's hair, too.

"They really took the time to make you
feel good," Ms. Immel said. "That helps because when you're unemployed
you can get to the point where you start looking down on yourself."

Because
the effects of this recession are so widespread, there is also a
stronger sense of humility among the still-employed, as business owners
see customers dwindle and employees brace for the next round of layoffs.

Gary Donlin, the owner of the Quail Hollow Golf and Country Club in
Oakham, Mass., said gratitude for his own job inspired him to offer
free weekday golfing to the unemployed. He had noticed that membership
was down - both because of golfers who had lost jobs and those who
feared they might - and he realized that his longtime customers
shouldn't be taken for granted.

"These were the people who had
given us a job for 18 years," said Mr. Donlin, 64. "If they didn't have
a job, then what kind of people would we be if we didn't help them?"

However noble the intentions, though, these programs do offer some
financial upsides. If the barber chair or golf course would otherwise
be empty, why not generate some good will and positive press with free
services?

And Mr. Donlin notes that the laid-off
golfers frequently bring paying friends, who often rent golf carts and
buy sandwiches and beer at the clubhouse. "It hasn't been a completely
one-way street," he said.

There is also the hope that such offers will build future clientele.

Janet
Raiffa, an unemployed law-firm recruiter who writes a column for a
networking organization in New York called the 405 Club (named for the
state's maximum unemployment benefit of $405 a week), said that many
businesses now recognize that the jobless are a group worth investing
in, like students.

"There are a lot of lawyers and investment
bankers who made a lot of money in the past and will make a lot of
money in the future," Ms. Raiffa said. "They may be low now, but it's
still a population you want to build inroads with."

Offering free
services is no guarantee that beneficiaries will eventually become
paying customers. Ms. Raiffa now works out at New York Underground
Fitness, which offers free memberships to jobless people when they show
their unemployment stub each month. But she admits that she has frozen
her membership to a fancier club and intends to return once she finds a
job.

Eric Slayton, the owner of Underground, said he is fine
with that, insisting that his offer is a gift, not a marketing
strategy.

"Everyone said, ‘That's a good idea, that's a good
marketing idea,' but that isn't the point," said Mr. Slayton, 40, who
said he feels a responsibility to back up his advice to unemployed
friends that they stay fit and keep their stress level down. "It might
sound corny, but I'm sincere."

Whatever the motives, business owners do need to be mindful that their good deeds aren't punished.

Last April, Giuseppe Lazzara, the owner of Papa Joe's Barbershop in
Chandler, Ariz., placed a sign in his window offering free haircuts to
the jobless, after several of his regular customers said they were out
of work and couldn't afford a trim.

"I felt like someone was
stepping on my heart, so I said, ‘You've been coming here for 20 years,
you've been supporting me, so I will give you a free haircut,' "said
Mr. Lazzara, 69, who is known as Joe.

Two weeks later, a local
television station featured a story on Papa Joe's. Soon Mr. Lazzara's
barber chair was full of laid-off workers from across the Phoenix area;
he estimates he gave out about 150 cuts - none to his original
customers. So in June he quietly took the sign out of his window.

"If someone comes in and says they are having a hard time, I'll give
them a cut, but I don't advertise it anymore," he said. "I would go out
of business."

To contain their exposure, many businesses limit
their offers to one-day events or designate specific hours or days of
the week as free periods.

Integral Yoga Institute in New York,
for example, offers a class called Free Yoga and Networking for the
Unemployed every Wednesday evening (the jobless can also get discounts
for regular classes).

Pooling resources also helps. Anita
Astley, a marriage and family therapist from Clifton Park, N.Y., teamed
up with other professionals - including a psychiatric nurse, a social
worker and a career counselor - to form Professionals Without Fees,
which offers four free sessions to the unemployed.

"I can't take
everyone who calls, but I can refer them to other mental-health
professionals in the network," said Ms. Astley, 40.

At Visage á
Visage, Ms. Stoltzfus hasn't imposed any formal limits on the number of
cuts she will give away - she said the current count is nearly 100 -
but she does keep a list to ensure that first-timers have priority over
return visitors. And since her salon does not ask for proof of
unemployment, she has encountered the occasional scammer.

"That hurts," she said. "But then the next minute you have someone who really needs it, so you decide it's O.K."

Fortunately,
Ms. Stoltzfus said that the majority of customers are honorable, and
some, like Ms. Immel, now have jobs and are returning as paying clients.

"We've gone back for basic haircuts," Ms. Immel said. "We're not ready
to get the $200 daily treatment yet, but we'll get there."