WERU Community Radio 89.9 FM - diverse and grassroots radio serving Midcoast, Downeast & Bangor, a voice of many voices!
Serving Midcoast,
Downeast & Central Maine
A Voice of Many Voices
Broadcasting from Solar Powered Studios
WERU’s Fall Membership Drive ended on Saturday, and a great drive it was! While the goal for the week of fundraising was $28,000, we raised over $42,000! Our great listeners, members, and business members threw their support into something important that you believe in – Community Radio! Thank you all, and thanks to our volunteers and staff for a great job!
WERU’s One Small Step Project (undertaken in partnership with StoryCorps) has been recognized by the Maine Association of Broadcasters for excellence, and at the annual MAB Awards Gala on October 26, we received First Place in the “Radio Feature” category. Congratulations to WERU, and especially to our facilitators and producers Michele Christle and Chris Battaglia! Wonderful work!
More good news: WERU has been accepted by StoryCorps as an alumni hub station for another round of One Small Step this fall! More information is available by emailing onesmallstep@weru.org, as well as at https://weru.org/one-small-step-2024.
Back in June 2023, we put out a call. We were looking for people who were willing to come together for an hour-long facilitated conversation with a stranger with different viewpoints, during which they would be invited to get to know each other as people, through listening to each other’s stories. As you can imagine, the response was mixed. But by the end of 2023, over a hundred people had signed up to participate…
Check out this New York Times article about this StoryCorps One Small Step project, and this Bangor Daily News article about WERU and One Small Step!
Interview by Katy Green, Member Board of Directors
DJ Coco is the host of Golden 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.
The 2024 Word Literary Festival in Blue Hill, October 25-27, was a big success and WERU was there to record it. Listen here for fascinating conversations with authors Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Lev Grossman, as well as moving readings at Poets Aloud! with Kathleen Ellis, Dave Morrison, and Maya Williams. Thanks to Word for providing WERU will the opportunity to record and present this content!
We Are Queer, hosted by Olivia Paruk, is a monthly half hour show discussing being LGBTQ+ in Maine and beyond! In the first episode of We Are Queer, Olivia interviews Pepin Mittelhauser about their experience of self discovery and reflections on their queer identity. Their conversations cover Pepin’s queer beginnings, straight passing, and continual reflections on self.
You can listen to the first episode in the WERU Archives, or wherever you get podcasts!
Have you heard about the recent updates to the WERU app? 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!
Lunasa is our “Featured Event 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 new live album and then give you a chance to win a FREE pair of guest list passes to see them perform live with guest Dave Curley on Friday, December 20th at 7:30 PM in the Camden Opera House at 29 Elm Street!
DJ Denis will interview Kevin Crawford from the group live via telephone at 8:30 AM on Friday, December 20th!