Washington Blade - May 24, 2002
Lou Chibbaro Jr.

Speculation that the two groups were considering severing their ties with the Los Angeles-based Pallotta firm began to surface earlier this week when Whitman-Walker's board of directors met in a closed, executive session Tuesday night, May 21, to discuss the clinic's plans for the 2003 ride.

The two groups, which serve as the D.C. area's largest private agencies providing services to people with HIV and AIDS, received $1.7 million each from the 2001 D.C. AIDS Ride, a three-day event in which bicyclists recruited donors who contributed thousands of dollars for the event.

But this year, the number of riders participating in the event has declined following a flurry of negative publicity surrounding the for-profit Pallotta firm. Whitman-Walker spokesperson Michael Cover said the clinic developed a "worst-case" projection showing this year's ride, set to begin June 13, might yield as little as $400,000 each for the clinic and Food & Friends.

"We expect and hope the amount will be much higher than that," said Cover, who said the $400,000 figure was "absolutely not" a firm prediction.

When asked whether Whitman-Walker and Food & Friends would enter into a contract with the Pallotta firm for a 2003 Washington AIDS Ride, Cover said, "We will be making a joint announcement next week. We have not worked out all of the details yet."

"I'm going to hold off all of my comments on this until next week," said Food & Friends executive director Craig Shniderman. "We're going to discuss with the media our plans for next year next week."

During past years, Cover and Shniderman have said the two organizations routinely signed contracts with the Pallotta firm for the following year's AIDS Ride more than a year in advance, based on a requirement by Pallotta.

In the wake of the controversies surrounding the Pallotta firm, Whitman-Walker and Food & Friends have had to remind potential participants in this year's D.C. AIDS Ride that the ride is aimed at supporting the two groups' clients, not the Pallotta firm, Food & Friends' Shniderman said.

Shniderman acknowledged that his fund-raising department prepared a script to respond to questions about the Pallotta firm for volunteer telephone bank workers who earlier this year called participants in previous rides who had not signed up for this year's event.

Shniderman said the script coached the volunteers to remind skeptical riders that the 2002 AIDS Ride was being held to benefit people in need and that Food & Friends relies on money raised by the rides to help provide meals for thousands of homebound residents with AIDS and other ailments.

Avon pulls out of Pallotta events

News that Whitman-Walker and Food & Friends were reassessing their ties to Pallotta Teamworks came during the same week that the Avon cosmetics company announced that its breast cancer foundation decided to withdraw as a beneficiary of the Pallotta-produced Breast Cancer three-day fund-raising walks in 2003.

The Avon Foundation's Breast Cancer Crusade has received more than $116 million in net proceeds from the Pallotta organized three-day walks since Avon teamed up with Pallotta in 1998, according to information released by the Pallotta firm.

An Avon press release issued May 21 says Avon's decision to sever its ties with Pallotta Teamworks' three-day walks was part of its "continuous evolution" of fund-raising activities. The release provided no further details on why the company suddenly withdrew from the events. A company spokesperson did not return calls from the Blade by press time.

A statement released by Pallotta Teamworks says the firm will continue to produce the three-day walks and would announce the names of one or more new beneficiaries and sponsors in July.

Discussion among Avon officials about the cosmetic company's ties to the Pallotta firm surfaced following a recent Avon shareholders meeting in which members of a national coalition of women's health organizations, called Follow the Money, raised concerns about the walks. Members of the coalition complained that too much of the money raised by the events went to production and overhead costs. Some members of the women's coalition said Avon should pick up a greater share of these expenses.

Kathleen DeBold, executive director of the Mautner Project for Lesbians with Cancer, which is a member of the Follow the Money coalition, said her group has called on Avon to pay for all of the overhead costs of the walks. DeBold noted that while Avon has sponsored the walks since 1994, the Pallotta firm, under contract with Avon, pays the production and overhead costs from the money raised by the walkers. About 60 cents on every dollar raised through the walks has gone to Avon, which disburses the funds to various cancer-fighting programs, Avon said in a statement released this week.

"If Avon covered the cost of these events, 100 percent of the money raised by walkers and those who sponsor them would go to fighting breast cancer, and Avon would set a new standard for corporate involvement in ending this epidemic," DeBold said.

Associated Press contributed to this report.

News reporter Lou Chibbaro Jr. can be reached at lchibbaro@washblade.com.

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