By Kathryn Reed

Thane McCall’s generosity could be monumental if the South Shore housing market returns to the glory days.

Even if home sales sputter as they have been, McCall has pledged to donate a total of $20,000 to five area charities. If profits are better than that for the entire calendar year, the larger sum will be divvied up among the recipients.

Thane McCall

At a press conference this morning, McCall and representatives of the five agencies – Lake Tahoe Boys & Girls Club, CASA, South Lake Tahoe Police Activities League, South Lake Tahoe Women’s Center, and Tahoe Youth & Family Services – spoke of what his donation means.

“I wanted to do something that would help kids in our community and kids that are put in a position where they might be at-risk due to things that are out of their control,” Thane told Lake Tahoe News before the conference. “Typically we are going after younger kids that haven’t made poor decisions already, where it’s a lot easier to steer them in the right direction.”

McCall won’t guess as to what kind of money could be raised this calendar year. He said real estate sales are picking up and called April a “great” month.

This is McCall’s 30th year to live in Lake Tahoe. It’s his second stint at owning a real estate company bearing his name. He sold the company in 2005 and reopened McCall Realty last year.

“It really isn’t about McCall Realty as it is about the community,” McCall said. “It’s hard for me to predict what the consumer is going to do when they hear about this. Typically in the past all of my contributions have been quiet. This one I think we can raise the public awareness to raise more money for the charities.”

McCall said some of the charities he is working with have told him they’ve been trying to engage the business community to get different fund-raising campaigns under way.

“This might be what they need to kick it off,” McCall.

He shied away from offering a challenge to other businesses to see what they could raise in the same time period.

With funding being cut, grants not as prolific, donations diminishing, but the need increasing for the services these five charities provide, McCall said it was time to stop thinking about what he could do and instead create a plan where he could be writing hefty checks at the end of the year or in early 2011.