Our Story

Welcome to Our Family: Beauty Bus Founders with Melissa Marantz Nealy (green dress), the beautiful inspiration for our organization.

December 26, 2005, profoundly changed our lives forever. Our dear cousin and sister, Melissa Marantz Nealy was taken from us at 28 years old from a degenerative neuromuscular disease.

The weeks that followed are a blur. What we do remember is our lack of motivation to do anything. That eventually changed and we took the motivation from how Melissa lived her life to pick ourselves up.

Two years later, on a Sunday morning we were on the phone and began discussing the things that made Melissa happy and gave her a quality of life while she was sick. One of the things was the beauty treatments Alicia had set up for her to have at home - hair blown dry, manicures and pedicures, facials. It was easy for Alicia to set these up because her career was in the beauty industry, but it was expensive.

We would presume for someone not connected to the beauty industry the way Alicia is, it would be impossible to find the resources and take time out to contact beauty professionals and schedule beauty treatments. Especially with the daily demands of taking care of a home-bound patient and scheduling doctor visits.

After a lengthy conversation came the idea for the Beauty Bus Foundation, a non-profit that provides in-home beauty and grooming services free of charge to home-bound physically impaired, ill or disabled individuals and their primary caregivers.

After a year of work incorporating Beauty Bus Foundation, purchasing web domains, laying out our mission, and working with our attorney to build the foundation of the Foundation and compiling our 501(c)(3) application, we were granted 501(c)(3) status on January 12, 2009.

Feeling beautiful and pampered gives a lift. Being pampered and touched by someone other than a physician or medical practitioner is rare for people who are suffering from diseases and impairments.

A beauty or grooming treatment gives them an activity to look forward to, an hour out of their disease.

Many caregivers are family members; wives, children, parents, siblings who do not have the time, energy or funds to take care of themselves. They too need a lift and need to be reminded that they matter.

The Beauty Bus Foundation strives to give people something to look forward to, to make them feel beautiful, which raises self esteem, to help them maintain their dignity and to enhance their quality of life in the way that we know how.

Founders

Alicia Marantz Liotta and Wendy Marantz Levine are cousins who were born and raised in Los Angeles. Giving back has always been a big part of their family values.

Both are involved on boards of various community organizations and have professional backgrounds that meet the demands of running Beauty Bus Foundation.

ALICIA has worked in the beauty industry for over nine years in the marketing, communications and editorial worlds at various beauty companies. Her recent work with a renowned beauty magazine has given her the opportunity to meet and work with industry icons, including Vidal Sassoon, Michael O'Rourke (Sexy Hair Concepts), Anthony Mascolo (TIGI), Robert Lobetta (Sebastian) and some of Hollywood's finest.

Alicia currently consults and freelances on projects related to the beauty industry.

She graduated from Emory University and then spent time in New York.

WENDY was an attorney at a large legal services firm in Los Angeles, assisting the elderly, poor and disabled. Previously in her law career, Wendy practiced in a large private law firm, taught law school and worked for a federal judge.

She graduated from Duke University and the University of Michigan Law School.

Both now live back at home in Los Angeles with their loving and supportive husbands. Wendy is also the proud mom of a baby girl.

Beauty Bus Board

Wendy Marantz Levine
Alicia Marantz Liotta
Ann Mincey
Dan Rosenson
Robbie Schaeffer
Kathy Vincent