Firing of Imus threatens his cancer charity for kids

RIBERA, N.M. — Don Imus' banishment from the public airwaves also deprives him of a key platform to raise money for the Imus Cattle Ranch for Kids With Cancer, where children with cancer and other illnesses get a taste of the cowboy life.

Before he was fired last week for calling the Rutgers University women's basketball team "nappy-headed hos," Imus pointed to the northern New Mexico ranch to make his case that he is "a good person who said a bad thing."

With Imus out of a job, some wonder whether the pipeline of charity money will dry up.

Just as corporate sponsors backed away from his radio show, "I think you'll see a similar effect on the charity, where the corporate donors will find a less hot-button charity to support," said Trent Stamp, president of Charity Navigator, a charity-watchdog group.

Imus said he and his wife, Deirdre, are round-the-clock surrogate parents to the youngsters who spend a week at the property. Nearly half of the children are from minority groups, and 10 percent are black.

"There's not an African-American parent on the planet who has sent their child to the Imus Ranch who didn't trust me and trust my wife," he said on his show. "And when these kids die, we don't just go to the white kid's funeral."

Kansas horseman Rob Phillips said he plans to give the ranch proceeds from a 500-mile charity race he's staging this fall. But Phillips worries that without Imus' radio forum, the ranch and other charities will suffer.

"He had a capability to get on the air and raise a tremendous amount of money for these causes," Phillips said. "I don't see anybody else doing that."

Stamp said donations may increase in the short term because of the heightened attention.

The Imus show's annual two-day fundraising Radiothon, benefiting the ranch and two charities that refer children to it, had raised more than $2.3 million as of Friday, said Deirdre Imus, who hosted Friday's show.

But in the long term, Stamp predicted the firing would cause "irreparable harm."

The ranch's list of contributors is not public information, but the ranch has relied heavily on corporate contributions. Imus Ranch Foods, which is affiliated with the ranch, says it donates 100 percent of its profits to support the operation.

The Reader's Digest Foundation gave $1 million seven years ago, Imus has said, and American Express made a one-time, $250,000 donation nine years ago. Neither company is a contributor now, representatives said.

General Motors said Friday it would continue donating Chevrolet Suburbans for the ranch.

The Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey provides the doctors, nurses and "child life specialists" who attend every ranch session.

The nearly 4,000-acre ranch, at the foot of a mesa about 50 miles from Santa Fe, features a re-creation of the main street of a 19th-century Western town, a swimming pool, an indoor riding arena, an outdoor rodeo arena and barns.

Children between 10 and 17 who have cancer or serious blood disorders, or who have lost siblings to sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), spend seven days at the ranch — in the summer, when Imus would broadcast from a studio there — at no cost to their families.

They do daily chores, learn to ride and care for horses, and help feed cattle, sheep, buffalo, chickens, goats and donkeys.

They stay in the main ranch house, a 14,000-square-foot adobe hacienda that the Imuses describe as an "architectural masterpiece."

The menu is vegan: No meat, fish, poultry or dairy products are served.

It's an expensive operation. The ranch hosted 90 children in the 2005 and 2006 sessions and spent $2.5 million — about $28,000 a child — according to its most recent tax filings.

That's at least 10 times what the Make-A-Wish or similar camps spend on children, largely because the Imus operation is a year-round, working cattle ranch, Stamp said.

The ranch is at the edge of Ribera, one of a string of tiny villages along the Pecos River. Residents say the ranch closes itself off from the community, although Imus has given money to a local medical clinic and to a project to renovate a dilapidated school building for use as a community center.

He also publicly prodded Gov. Bill Richardson to support the community center, calling him a "fat sissy" on the air.