New Shasta County
Community Radio Station?

The FCC opened the application process to community-based groups and religious organizations for a small number of available radio channels. This opportunity will probably not come along again in our lifetimes.

So we applied. With the help of a number of very special donors, we raised over $6,000 to fund a professional application that, we're told, will be the highest ranked once the FCC begins evaluating our category of applications.

Then, the work really begins. A new, non-corporate station is essentially a blank canvas. We will ask for extensive community involvement in what programs will be created and aired. The possibilities are practically endless. Clearly, part of our goal would be to air some public interest programs that are not being broadcast locally on the radio such as Democracy NOW! and Air America. We also want to fully engage a wide spectrum of our community. We can create community forums, interviews, opinion/analysis, local author readings, local musician performances -- the canvas is broad and community driven.

Such a station allows listening access to everyone, regardless of income status, on issues not consistently being covered by other media -- you wouldn't have to have cable, satellite or a computer with DSL in order to access such programming.

People of Progress stepped forward as the best candidate for being granted a license and volunteers from Citizens for Responsible Government (CRG) also helped make it happen.. More funds will be needed in the future when the FCC begins their review. We have no idea when that will be!

The application was a monumental undertaking. A successful community radio station will require the consistent participation of many people -- not just donors.

If you would like to contribute to our community radio fund, checks should be written to:
People of Progress P.O. Box 994431 Redding, CA 96099-4431
(and please write RADIO in the check notes section)

Or, click below to use PayPal

People of Progress has served Shasta County for 37 years with a food bank and resource center providing emergency clothing, blankets/diapers/personal hygiene items, post-disaster assistance, voice mail, rent assistance, emergency shelter, emergency casework/information/referrals, community resource guides, homeless survey information, community gardens and we lead and/or participates in many collaborative efforts.
We served over 16,000 people last year with food for 211,000 meals, 8,000 clothing items, 2,200 bus passes, 500 blankets, 488 shelter nights, 500+ voicemail boxes and we prevented 21 households from becoming homeless. We're all in this together.

-- page updated 6/23/2008 --