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
Our Spring Membership Drive begins on Saturday, May 3 with the Saturday Morning Coffeehouse, and goes until Saturday, May 10! Make a donation, become a member, a sustaining member…! We wouldn’t be here without the amazing support of our community, so please stand up for WERU and support what you believe in. Thank you!
Click “read more” to see a financial snapshot of WERU in 2025.
Congress will soon be considering a rescission package from the Trump Administration which would take back previously-appropriated funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. This would be devastating for many community radio stations around the country, eliminating funding appropriated for 2026 and 2027.
At WERU, the Community Service Grant that we gratefully receive from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, amounts to approximately 25% of our budget. We use these funds, $163,422 in 2025, for expenses like nationally syndicated news and public affairs programming, studio equipment, volunteer training, and station staff.
Please contact our Congressional delegation and tell them that this rescission package, if approved by Congress, would gravely impact WERU and our many listeners, who are their constituents. Listeners like you can make a difference. Read more for a letter template and mailing addresses. Also, sign up for action alerts at https://protectmypublicmedia.org/. Thank you!
The latest updates:
https://www.axios.com/2025/04/29/corporation-for-public-broadcasting-sues-trump
https://www.npr.org/2025/04/29/nx-s1-5381045/cpb-board-members-trump-lawsuit-npr-pbs
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 archives here!
Participatory Democracy, encouraging citizens to take an active role in government and politics. Tune in every 3rd Friday of the month at 4pm!
For the past two years Chris Battaglia and Michele Christle (both of Torchlight 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 the One Small Step archives). Email feedback to info@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 the Corporation 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.
We Are Queer, hosted by Olivia 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!
What’s the Word on Maine Street, hosted by Sarah 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 the WERU archives!
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!
GoldenOak 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 the group and then give you a chance to win a FREE pair of guest list passes to see them perform live on Saturday, May 10th at 7:30 PM in The Waldo Theatre at 916 Main Street in Waldoboro)!
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