ERLANGER — As the parent of a healthy child, Guy McFadden says that's all the incentive he needs to donate use of an Erlanger entertainment complex for fund-raisers helping others.

        Five years ago, the former Long Island resident turned Northern Kentucky entrepreneur celebrated the birth of a healthy son after his wife had suffered three miscar riages.

        “Every day, I look at my son, Jerry, and I say, "Thank God, I'm blessed,'” Mr. McFadden said. “I feel every parent who has a healthy child should help those who don't.”

        At his latest fund-raiser Saturday night, the general manager of Peel's Palace said he expected to raise at least $15,000 for the family of Jacob Reed, a 10-year-old Erlanger boy who was born with epilepsy, a brain tumor and organs on the outside of his body.

        Among the six bands who donated their performances was Raven, a classic-rock group featuring the outspoken, 30-something general manager of Peel's Palace as its lead singer.

        Saturday's charitable event was one of six to 10 a year that Mr. McFadden helps organize at the entertainment complex. He is also starting bingo this week to benefit children of domestic violence.

        “In the first few years of this, I'd let people use the facility, give them suggestions and stand back. I'd watch flop after flop, and it drove me crazy, so in the summer of '99, I assumed control (of the fund-raisers) if the people would let me.”

        Families who have used Mr. McFadden's services say the man who has been known to book bodybuilders on one side of a divided hall and a wedding reception on the other uses the same brashness to promote their cause.

        Under Mr. McFadden's prodding, celebrities have met with sick children, Reds and Bengals players have donated jerseys and country-music stars have autographed guitars. But the mainstay of the fund-raisers has been local mom-and-pop businesses, he said, who donate everything from hotel rooms to limo rides.

        “It's hard work, and it's not glamorous,” Mr. McFadden said. “It's our obligation to help. If I needed the help, I would want to know that someone would help me.”

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