'An Angel from God': Dick Van Dyke, 96, Hands Cash to Homeless During Rare Public Sighting
Dick Van Dyke — that seemingly unstoppable force of stage and screen for more than seven decades — made a public appearance last week. Those he helped proclaimed him “an angel from God.”
Van Dyke, 96, showed up at the Malibu Community Labor Exchange on Oct. 13. During his time there, he made sure that the people who were there to find work each went away with five dollars, the Daily Mail reported.
“Whenever I have some fives I come by,” Van Dyke told Daily Mail. But he noted “You can’t do it all the time though!”
“Just call him angel from God,” one center employee said of the actor.
Van Dyke is a big fan of the Malibu Community Labor Exchange, a nonprofit agency dedicated to matching employers with the homeless and others who are looking for work.
He was first spotted at the exchange in 2021, when he also handed out cash to those who had come seeking employment.
According to the agency’s website, Malibu Community Labor Exchange has helped more than 5,000 people find jobs since it began in 1990.
Van Dyke has certainly not let grass grow beneath him. In 2018 he made an appearance in “Mary Poppins Returns,” the sequel to the much beloved Disney classic from 1964 — “Mary Poppins” — in which he starred in alongside Julie Andrews.
And hearkening back to a television career that included “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” he performed as the voice of a puppet in an episode of the Showtime series Kidding in 2020.
Dick Van Dyke has engendered good cheer wherever he has gone. In 2016 Van Dyke and his singing troupe, The Vantastix, serenaded fellow diners at a Denny’s restaurant with the theme song from his 1968 fantasy film” Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.”
And earlier this year Van Dyke showed his still-formidable footwork in the music video for his wife’s song “Everybody Loves a Lover.”
It is a vitality that Van Dyke accredits to exercise, a joy for living for what one loves to do and “not getting hit by a bus.”
And he’s not done yet. Pre-production has begun on “Capture the Flag,” a comedy about veterans competing for who raises the flag over their community every morning.
It seems that the entertainment legend has hit upon an excellent regimen for overall health regardless of age.
With a hearty outlook on life, a spirit of goodwill and a commitment to physical well-being, Dick Van Dyke is demonstrating that anyone can be young at heart.
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