Support for Opportunity Village more proof Fator is a class act

Some celebrities come here for a gig, pocket their exorbitant salaries and leave without becoming part of this admittedly bizarre community where the concept of Las Vegas as home can be inconceivable.

Then there’s Terry Fator.

The man from Texas is not a longtime Vegas kind of guy. Yet less than one year after he became a headliner at The Mirage on Feb. 14, 2009, Fator agreed to help Opportunity Village raise $1 million.

The ventriloquist/impressionist/puppeteer /comic/singer, whose five talents pulled him to the winning spot in "America’s Got Talent" in 2007, made his pledge to help the developmentally disabled at a bleak time, shortly after Opportunity Village’s downtown thrift shop burned.

Fator isn’t the first celebrity to help Opportunity Village. Wayne Newton and Siegfried & Roy have consistently supported the operation. Celine Dion performed a concert that raised $1 million in one night.

Fator was predisposed to support Opportunity Village because the late impressionist/singer Danny Gans, who performed in the same theater, also made a $1 million commitment, but Gans died after raising $250,000. Fator also supports the Arthritis Foundation because of his sister’s arthritis and supports the Boot Campaign to help veterans and their families.

Before committing himself, Fator toured Opportunity Village. Linda Smith, who has raised more than $100 million for the operation, believes if people see the three campuses, they will become advocates. Maybe they’ll give money. Maybe they’ll urge others to use the services.

Seeing is believing.

Opportunity Village serves close to 1,300 people a year but still has a waiting list of 500. Its $26 million annual budget (80 percent is raised privately) saves taxpayers an estimated $22 million a year, Smith said. (Disclosure: Las Vegas Review-Journal Publisher Bob Brown is chairman of the Opportunity Village board.)

Shredding, cleaning and baking cookies are among the jobs clients are trained to do.

Smith’s son Chris is 38 years old physically but 5 or 6 mentally. Eight years ago, he joined the shredding service. When he got his first paycheck, he shredded it for the joy of shredding. Chris’s check is now on automatic deposit.

The workers discover between $35,000 to $40,000 a year in zippered pouches holding checks and cash. Bank officials have told Smith that before they started having Opportunity Village handle their shredding, they never had money or checks returned.

During his show Saturday, Fator presented a $15,000 check to Opportunity Village, closing in on nearly $100,000 of the $1 million commitment.

Gaining the support of Fator is huge, Smith said.

"We’re not a national charity. We’re 100 percent local," she said. "Terry is recognized across the country, but this doesn’t get him national acclaim."

When Fator and wife Taylor Makakoa walked into a post-performance reception, one disabled young man jumped and screamed in delight. His joy at seeing Fator was so exuberant, the rest of us in the room couldn’t match it.

I was at Fator’s show as the guest of a friend who supports Opportunity Village and who had long said that his show was the best on the Strip.

I was a skeptic, having never seen "America’s Got Talent." I wondered about the wisdom of paying $100 million for five years for a guy with puppets. But his ability to belt out a song without moving his lips, do a spot-on imitation of recognizable voices, crack jokes via the puppets, and make it all seem effortless, created a new fan.

His commitment to charities increased my admiration.

The clincher: Fator is writing a series of books, retelling the Gospel from the eyes of Jesus’ cat.

Giving, talented and he obviously likes cats. Isn’t that closing in on near perfection?

Jane Ann Morrison’s column appears Monday, Thursday and Saturday. Email her at Jane@reviewjournal.com or call her at 702-383-0275. She also blogs at lvrj.com/blogs/Morrison.