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WERU’s Spring Community Gathering – Saturday, April 26
WERU’s annual Spring Community Gathering will take place on Saturday, April 26, from 11:30 am to 2 pm. The event will be at The Alamo Theatre, 85 Main Street in Bucksport. WERU listeners, volunteers, and staff will get together to visit and celebrate community radio, as WERU turns 37 years old on May 1. There will be plenty of pizza in the lobby and live music in the theater, starting at 1:00 with The Night and Day Jazz Trio, followed by folk duo Waxwing. The event is free and open to the public, no RSVP necessary, so we hope to see you on April 26 for our Spring Community Gathering!
Protect Public Funding for Community Radio!
WERU Community Radio is one of the best local sources of information, delivering educational and cultural enrichment, emergency alerts, and community connections for Midcoast, Downeast, and Central Maine. But all of that is at risk. Federal funding is under serious threat and its loss would jeopardize WERU’s future, as it comprises one quarter of our overall annual funding.
But listeners like you can make a difference. Tell Congress to protect the federal funding that helps to make WERU possible. You can find out more about taking action atProtect My Public Media. Thank you for making your voice heard!
Democracy Forum: Constitutional Crisis? Call it what you will, this is not normal…
Many of us are not yet feeling the heat from the dramatic policy changes coming out of the new federal administration – life goes on. But some of us are getting hurt. And some of us are afraid. Because so many of these federal policies are being promulgated by executive order, without Congress and sometimes in defiance of the courts, some observers are concerned that our country is experiencing a constitutional crisis. It is certainly a moment of disruption. How serious is it? Who might be next? How is this moment outside the norm? How worried should we be?
Tune in at 4pm today for the most recent episode of Democracy Forum from the League of Women Voters of Maine, and listen in the WERU archiveshere!
Participatory Democracy, encouraging citizens to take an active role in government and politics. Tune in every 3rd Friday of the month at 4pm!
Update on One Small Step
For the past two years Chris Battaglia and Michele Christle (both ofTorchlight Media in Belfast) have been fortunate to recruit, facilitate, record, archive, and produce StoryCorps’ One Small Step conversations for WERU—first as a hub station in 2023 and then as an alumni station in 2024. They recorded 33 conversations in total and hosted three trainings and two public community events. (Want to see our full archive of all the conversations we recorded? All released conversations are here.)
WERU is currently broadcasting the most recent short clips from a few of these conversations on Thursdays, February 6, 13, and 20 at 8:30am, and on Fridays, March 7, 14, and 21 at 3:50pm) This past year, we chose to highlight intergenerational conversations between teens and elders rather than focusing on political differences. We’d love to know what you think of the pieces you hear on the air (or in theOne Small Step archives). Email feedback toinfo@weru.org.
Chris and Michele have finished their work on One Small Step, and WERU offers a huge thanks to them for their dedication and skillful, award-winning work over the past two years! Many thanks as well to all the participants, prospective participants, event partners,StoryCorps, and theCorporation for Public Broadcasting (for providing funding).
We want to acknowledge that far more people signed up to participate in One Small Step here in Maine/Wabanakik than we were able to match and record conversations with. The good news is that there may be more opportunities to participate in One Small Step-related activities/conversations with WERU. The station is taking a pause right now and is hoping to start back up again this spring. We invite you to sign up for WERU’s newsletter to be sure you hear about it.
Public Affairs Program: We Are Queer
We Are Queer, hosted byOlivia Paruk, is a monthly half hour show discussing being LGBTQ+ in Maine and beyond!We Are Queer, highlights the touching experiences from Maine’s diverse LGBTQ+ community that builds empathy and understanding in our greater community. If you have feedback for the show or want to get in touch email info@weru.org with WERQ in the subject line.
Episode 1 – Pepin: Discovery of Self
Episode 2 – Father Douglas: God Does Not Create Junk
Episode 3 – Bo Dennis: Finding Queer Joy Through Farming
Episode 4 – OutMaine: Looking Out for Our Queer Children
You can also listen to all the episodes wherever you get podcasts!
Public Affairs Program: What’s the Word on Maine Street
What’s the Word on Maine Street, hosted bySarah Pebworth, is a weekly short feature every Saturday at 9:30am looking at local word and literary arts events and offerings!
You can listen to all the episodes in theWERU archives!
Meet DJ Coco
Interview by Katy Green, Member Board of Directors
DJ Coco is the host ofGolden Hour, Saturdays 5-6pm.
Tell me about your path leading up to you volunteering at WERU.
I’ve been a musician for many years now and I have typically made friends and found community through playing music. Since moving to Maine, it’s been harder for me to find folks to play music with so I thought community radio might be a good way to meet fellow music lovers and I was right.
Check out WERU’s App!
Have you heard about the WERU mobile phone app? Available on iOS and Android! We’re always trying to improve this service, and two new features under the menu icon are pretty cool. One is called “station news,” which you can select to get articles about the latest goings on at WERU. The other is labelled “your voice,” which gives you the ability to record a station identification or tell us why you listen to WERU, both of which could be broadcast on the station. So, if you want to add your voice to the “Voice of Many Voices,” use this feature and we’ll give it a listen, and you never know, you might hear yourself over the airwaves or on the internet. That’s the every-improving WERU app for your phone or other mobile device, available for free at your favorite app store. Check it out!
Featured Artist of the Week
“Morning Maine” Featured Artist of the Week: RIVER WHYLESS
River Whyless is our “Featured Artist of the Week”! Tune in each weekday morning at 7:45 AM (ET) to hear our volunteer disc jockey play at least one song from their newest album and then give you a chance to win a FREE pair of guest list passes to see them with opening house band Tunk Streamers on Sunday, May 4th from 5 – 8 PM atTunkJoy Bakery (61 Rogers Point Road in Steuben)!
Wabanaki Land Acknowledgement
WERU Community Radio acknowledges that the radio station exists in the place we now call Maine, which is home to the sovereign Wabanaki people. We are very grateful to be here and honor the ancestral and contemporary Wabanaki peoples indigenous to these places in the Dawnland.
