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News :: Miscellaneous |
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WEFT 90.1 FM To Air 5th Annual Homelessness Marathon, 6 PM Feb. 5 – 8 AM Feb. 6 |
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by WEFT Community Radio
Email: weft (nospam) prairienet.org (unverified!)
Phone: 217-359-9338
Address: 113 N. Market St., Champaign, IL 61820 |
14 Jan 2002
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Community Radio WEFT announces their broadcast of the Fifth Annual Homelessness Marathon, live from the streets of Portland, OR, beginning 6:00 PM Tuesday, Feb. 5 until 8:00 AM the next morning. The mission of this acclaimed radio broadcast is to let homeless people speak to the nation, but that's not all that happens during this annual, overnight program which has originated from a different city each year. |
Community Radio WEFT 90.1 FM Carries the 5th Annual Homelessness Marathon,
6 PM Feb. 5 – 8 AM Feb. 6, 2002.
CHAMPAIGN, IL (January 14) Community Radio WEFT announces their broadcast of the Fifth Annual Homelessness Marathon, live from the streets of Portland, OR, beginning 6:00 PM Tuesday, Feb. 5 until 8:00 AM the next morning. The mission of this acclaimed radio broadcast is to let homeless people speak to the nation, but that's not all that happens during this annual, overnight program which has originated from a different city each year.
Host "Nobody" broadcasts the Marathon from outdoors to dramatize the plight of people with nowhere to go in the cold winter nights. For 14 hours he interviews experts on the real issues of poverty and homelessness while taking calls from listeners across the country. Importantly, “Nobody” invites homeless people to speak for themselves live on the microphone and by phone using a toll-free phone number available from payphones and shelters.
This year’s Marathon is hosted by Portland’s community radio station KBOO-FM and Street Roots, Portland’s homeless street newspaper. Last year’s Marathon, broadcast from Cambridge, MA, was heard on 35 stations coast-to-coast in major metropolitan areas like Los Angeles, Chicago and San Francisco. WEFT has carried the last three Homelessness Marathons, and in January 2000 the station hosted the Marathon outside its downtown Champaign studio, where temperatures stayed well below freezing during the entire broadcast.
The Homelessness Marathon is the largest media event in America focusing on poverty, and has been widely recognized as an historic broadcast. Tapes of the Marathons have been archived by libraries at Harvard, Stanford, Cornell and many other institutions around the country.
The Homelessness Marathon is a consciousness raising, not a fund-raising, event. "We don't want people to think this is a matter of charity," says Nobody. "It's a matter of changing our national priorities. And to do that, we've got to listen to what homeless people, themselves, have to say."
More information about the Homeless Marathon is available at http://www.homelessnessMarathon.org.
WEFT is East-Central Illinois’ noncommercial community radio station broadcasting at 90.1 FM with 10,000 watts of power. In 2001-2002 WEFT celebrates 20 years of broadcasting to the region. More information about WEFT, including a program schedule, is available at http://www.weftfm.org/ |
See also:
http://www.prairienet.org/weft
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