Urban Unrest

19 May 2006 | Technology | Ernesto Aguilar

From Nathan Moore at WORT: Last year, the good folks at Prometheus continued the Grassroots Radio Coalition tradition of setting up a "Solidarity Fund" to provide scholarships to attend the conference. Through donations from stations, organizations, and individuals, the GRC has been able to raise several thousand dollars each year to bring more people of color and low-income folks to the conference. Past Solidarity Fund recipients have all added immensely to the experience of GRC conferences.

In addition to many people of color and low income folks from around the U.S., this year we are trying to bring a delegation of community radio activists to Madison from Radio Victoria, WORT's sister station in El Salvador. Since it first went on the air in 1993, Radio Victoria has provided home-grown communication to a poor, rural area that includes communities without telephone, mail or newspaper delivery. According to its website, it's "a place where people can walk in, send out messages and greetings, make announcements, talk about problems, look for answers, question policies, and articulate dreams."

So our goal this year is ambitious … we hope to raise *$5000 OR MORE* for the Solidarity Fund. But that will take everyone and every station and organization doing its part!

There is about $1500 in the Solidarity Fund right now, so that's a good start. But it's only 30% of our goal.

To individuals in the position to make a donation, why not donate $111 to celebrate GRC's 11th anniversary?

Perhaps stations & organizations can think about donating $511? Or perhaps $11 in binary, that is $1,011?

As always, whatever amount you can afford will be greatly appreciated and will go a long way towards making GRC even better with regard to our goal of increasing diversity and all that this means.

You can pledge online on this listserv, and then mail your Solidarity Fund donation to:

GRC-11
ATTN: Solidarity Fund
c/o WORT-FM
118 S. Bedford St.
Madison, WI 53703

One thing that helped get the ball rolling last year was the posting of pledges directly to the GRC and NFCB lists, so please make your donation publicly on the list or email me if you'd like it to be posted anonymously.

The call for applicants to the Solidarity Fund will be out there soon, so let's build the fund together. We will all benefit!

We're starting with $1500 - now let's watch that figure go up every day & quickly! Thanks in advance & see you all in July!

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