May made charitable donations to land conservation, watershed protection, environmental education, and population causes. In 1996, May established
Colcom Foundation. May served as the chairman of both foundations until her death in 2005. In the year 1972, May was the single largest contributor to candidates running for Congress.
Pittsburgh area initiatives May's largesse helped fund a number of projects in the Pittsburgh area, including the
Pittsburgh National Aviary, the
Montour Trail, the
Riverlife Task Force, the
Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy, and the Women's Center & Shelter of Greater Pittsburgh. By 1952 she began to actively address national population issues. There is a bust of
Margaret Sanger in the
National Portrait Gallery which was a gift from May. By 1974, she had resigned from Planned Parenthood, based on her view that family planning was a waste of money in the presence of massive immigration.
Anti-immigration May opposed immigration. She argued the United States was "being invaded on all fronts" by immigrants who "breed like hamsters" and exhaust America's resources. The
Los Angeles Times reported that Scaife May was the single largest donor to anti-immigrant causes and "An ardent environmentalist more comfortable with books and birds than with high-society galas, May believed nature was under siege from runaway population growth. Before her death in 2005, she devoted much of her wealth to rolling back the tide--backing birth control and curbing immigration, both legal and illegal." The
Times also wrote that May donated $200,000 to conservative columnist
Samuel T. Francis, who called for a halt to all immigration and who opposes the
mixing of the races. == See also ==