Charity isn't always free

Font Size:

By Barb Ickes | Thursday, August 21, 2008 12:09 AM CDT | () comments

It’s a tough time to be in the retail business.

It would follow that it’s a tough time to be in the mall business.

Maybe that’s part of the explanation. Maybe not.

Kay Bergman, of East Moline, has muscular dystrophy. She, like most people with incurable diseases, invests great hope in medical research. And every dollar counts. That’s why she’s upset with Simon Properties, the owner of NorthPark Mall.

For the past two years, the Muscular Dystrophy Association’s 16-county office in Davenport has had a fundraiser at NorthPark. Dubbed “Stride and Ride,” the event works especially well in the mall because many participants use wheelchairs or walkers and need a reliable surface on which to move.

The mall people have been generous to MDA, charging nothing to use their space and even setting up tables with tablecloths for registration and refreshments. But next year is going to be different.

Deb Whitford, Davenport’s district director for MDA, said the agency was notified after this year’s event that next year’s will carry a fee. She doesn’t know how much.

Bergman said she knows: $500. “That’s quite a bit to take away from us,” she said. “We only have about five tables — a couple for sign-in and a place for the donated bagels and doughnuts.”

Five hundred clams sounds pretty steep for setting up and taking down a few tables and laundering the linens. But I couldn’t confirm the fee.

“I’m not at liberty to discuss tenant pricing,” said Darcy Jacks, the director of mall marketing. “We are in the business of leasing space. We try to do events at no charge — to try to help people out. We don’t want to take the proceeds away, but we do have expenses.”

I doubt that anyone expects the mall to give away the farm. If they provided free setup, teardown, security and tablecloth laundering for every worthwhile nonprofit, they’d be hosting events every weekend and going broke doing it.

And Simon does its part in the way of charitable giving.

Consider the muscle and prep work that goes into the gigantic Thanksgiving dinner each year at SouthPark Mall in Moline, also a Simon property. Jacks says Simon remains committed to keeping the holiday shindig a gift.

“There is no fee for the Thanksgiving dinner,” she said Wednesday. “They make no money on that. We do it as a good-will gesture. We’re proud to help him (Mr. Thanksgiving/Bob Vogelbaugh).”

He’s happy, too.

“The mall takes care of all the banquet tables for us,” he said. “If the mall decided to charge us, the meal would still go.”

Bergman wonders why a community dinner gets a free pass while fundraising for disease research gets a bill. If our lives depended on such research, most of us would feel the same way.

But officials at MDA have to be more understanding.

“All events have expenses, whether a nonprofit or charity or whatever,” Whitford said. “The mall treated us very well when we were there.”

It’s easy to be generous when times are good. But they’re not.

Barb Ickes can be contacted at (563) 383-2316 or bickes@qctimes.com.