Central Vermont Community Radio 6/23/25 Central Vermont Community Radio 6/23/25

Support our Underwriters & Sponsors

So far in 2025, we’ve received the support of 30+ underwriters and sponsors to help fund station costs. These local organizations, businesses, and individuals are showing their community-mindedness by using community radio to get the word out about what they do and offer. Please support those who support us!

Here is the list of these rockstars as of late June, 2025…

Black Bear Biodiesel
Buffalo Mountain Coop
Capital Cannabis Company
Catamount Arts
Center for Arts & Learning
Central Vermont Economic Development Corporation
Concept 2
Craft Cannabis
Dana Dwinell-Yardley (designer)
Execusuite/Ledgworks, owner of the Creative Campus
East Hill Tree Farm
Front Porch Forum
Galaxy Books
Green Mountain Film Festival
Harlow Nonprofit Consulting
Hunger Mountain Coop
Lawson’s Finest Liquids
Maple Roots Festival
Naive Melody Instruments
Northfield Savings Bank
Noyle Johnson Insurance
Onion River Campground
PCC
Plainfield Co-op & Hardware
Queer Arts Fest
Red Hen
Talmo Hair
Times Argus
Washington Electric Coop
Vermont Council for Independent Living

Central Vermont Community Radio 6/23/25 Central Vermont Community Radio 6/23/25

A Very Vermonty Auction

The auction goes live on August, 2 aka 8.02 day (get it? the Vermont area code?). It will be up for two weeks and all winners will be notified of their winning bids when we wrap it up on Sunday, August 17. Our goal is to raise $5K and have you win something really cool.

We bet you love winning just as much as you love community radio!

Thanks to over a hundred Vermont businesses, we're launching the first CVCR "Very Vermonty Auction." An online bidding frenzy that will win you cool Vermont experiences, adventures, goods, services and more. We've highly curated the items up for bid and encourage you to go out there and win it.

We’ll be teasing the kinds of experience and items you can win throughout the month of July on the air and online. Stay tuned!

If you have an item of $50 value or more you’d like to donate to the auction, we’d love your support. Email Llu@WGDR.org for more information.

Central Vermont Community Radio 6/9/25 Central Vermont Community Radio 6/9/25

Thank you, listeners!

We had an amazing birthday weekend thanks to you tuning in and coming down to the station to party. Over 150 people turned out to celebrate and we had over 36 hours of special, live and local programming broadcasting all weekend long.

Thanks again to our community sponsors Physician’s Computer Company, Northfield Savings Bank, Lawson’s Liquids, Washington Electric Coop, and Concept2, we were able to raise about $4K from the weekend to keep our programming rolling strong all summer long.

As of Monday, June 9, we have raised almost our entire goal for the weekend ($4K).

With another $108 in gifts from listeners, we will hit that $4K.
Our community sponsors also put another $500 in matching gifts for any last minute gifts coming in the mail by check or after the weekend. So, that could mean we could raise $5K.
If you have yet to give to the station this year and want to make a birthday gift, you still can.

Thanks again to our community sponsors Physician’s Computer Company, Northfield Savings Bank, Lawson’s Liquids, Washington Electric Coop, and Concept2!

For those of you who missed the party - we felt you in spirit! Here are the brief remarks from our Station Manager, Llu Mulvaney-Stanak about a past year recap since our past party.

Welcome to our now annual birthday party! This marks 52 years of WGDR, 15 of WGDH, and 4 years of CVCR. These are big milestones for this station and everyone here in the room has been part of our success. Truly, we hope you all treat yourself with some great food, music, and company and celebrate with us here today!

There are many folks to thank!

To all volunteered to help set up the party and host and clean up. To our party committee – Charles, Maura, Barry, and Steve. I especially want to thank, DJ EhMmAh, Benge, and Kind who are DJing live today. To Charles for the great food spread.

This year’s party has many great community sponsors who are matching every single dollar we raise, up to $2,500 this weekend. Thanks to Physician’s Computer Company, Northfield Savings Bank, Lawson’s Liquids and Concept2! Also, thanks to ORCA for PA.

Thanks to our board of directors, many of whom are new! Charles, Tom, Barry (here today) and David M., Elizabeth, Audrey who couldn’t be here.

Thanks to our Programming Committee – Anna, John, Erica, Maura, Peter, and Ari.

To our now 70 local programmers who are making great radio every single day for you, including this weekend with special birthday programming.

And of course, to our listeners and supporters. We now estimate we have at least 15K folks who listen loyally to the station – about 10K of those on their radios and another 5K online and on demand. The station is growing in leaps and bounds and we are appreciate all the support the community has given us over the last FOUR years under community ownership!

It's been another big year at the station since our last birthday. I want to give folks some quick updates on what we’ve done together:

We’ve added another 20 local shows on the air, taking the schedule up to 70 local shows. Alongside our curated syndicated shows, the schedule is getting really full, such a good problem to have!
We’ve transitioned our board and programming committees from our founders to new groups of folks. These folks are tackling strategic planning as part of the next phase of community ownership.
And we’ve added a few very part time staff positions – Corey & Levi are helping us with underwriting & sponsorship, as well as operations and programmer support.
We’ve also lost some friends along the way. Dave Tucker, long time host of the Long & Winding Road, member of our Programming Committee, co-Music Director, all around volunteer of nearly everything, and our most recent board chair passed in March. His impact on the station is immeasurable and we miss him dearly.
We outlasted the “who’s buying Goddard campus” adventure of last year and now have a 2 year lease with Ledgeworks. This will see us through our strategy planning for what comes next with the station.
We also secured state funding from the legislature – a first for community radio in the state and no small feat in our current times! This funding will help us finally move the WGDR tower to a better location for broadcast across our area.

Lastly, I would be remiss to not take this opportunity to invite you to consider giving the station a birthday gift while you are here. Quite simply, this mission doesn’t move without money or in our case, broadcast without the bucks. In these times, protecting the public access to the airwaves is more important than ever. Community investment in our future success is what will keep this station in the hands of the community!

First, we’re hoping for your time and talents. The station is always looking for volunteers to join committees, the board, help with special projects, and to help us improve the station. You don’t have to do a radio show to be part of this place! If you are interested in this, please seek out me, a board member, or a staff person to learn more.

We are also asking for folks who have not yet given to the station, to consider giving a donation as a gift today. We’re currently at _______ raised, and that includes our match from sponsors. We’re hoping to raise at least $4K this weekend encourage folks to consider a gift of $15 or $52 – for the ages of our two stations – if you are able to make a gift. We can take cash or check today or you can give at WGDR.org. There are a few places here today you can make that gift online today or via OR code with your smartphone. Just find a staff or board member to help you. And, thank you!

Alright, that’s it folks, thanks again for coming to the party today. Enjoy yourself and we’ll give this back to DJ Emma!

Here’s to many more years of community radio broadcasting all over our area and online for generations to come! Woo hoo!

Central Vermont Community Radio 5/23/25 Central Vermont Community Radio 5/23/25

Win Tickets to Higher Ground Shows

Thanks to a new partnership with Higher Ground, listeners can tune in to win tickets to shows each month. Catch some of great live music all summer long and into this fall.

This June, keep an ear out for the giveaways on our music shows for the shows Junior Brown, the Bones of JR Jones, Waxahatachee, Fantastic Negrito, and Gary Clark in June.

Central Vermont Community Radio 5/23/25 Central Vermont Community Radio 5/23/25

Hear Roger Hill’s Daily Forecast

We are excited to announce the return of daily weather, thanks to forecaster Roger Hill! You'll hear the very local weather read live at either 7am or 9am and 7pm every day. Thank you to Roger for this generous partnership with the station. Bob will still do live weather with Alan & Steven Sunday mornings at 7am, too.

Central Vermont Community Radio 5/9/25 Central Vermont Community Radio 5/9/25

Big, good community radio news.

You did it! The Vermont Legislature just approved $150,000 in one-time funding for the ten community radio stations in Vermont. This is a direct result of your advocacy on behalf of the difference WGDR & WGDH makes in your everyday lives. Especially given federal funding trends and the impact on state funding, this is a really, really big deal. Thank you!

This funding will help each station upfit with new, critical broadcast gear like new transmitters or antennas, to ensure we stay on the air, especially during emergent situations in our communities. For many of these stations, they operate on budgets of less than $25K, with no staff. This is a game changer for them. For WGDR & WGDH, this means we can move ahead with our plan to move the WGDR antenna to a better tower location in Plainfield, to dramatically improve our broadcast reach and quality. This too, will be a game changer for us.

Friday, May 9, 2025

Friends of WGDR/WGDH -

At a time when it feels like good news is hard to come by, we hope you will take a minute and revel in this with us. Go team community radio!

And, if you could, please help us thank the legislators who made this possible. We made lots of new friends during this process, and some of our long-time champions were the difference maker in the final moments.

Please thank them in any of the following ways:

Send a hand written note to any of the folks listed below, before the end of the session, to their statehouse address: 115 State Street, Drawer 33, Montpelier, VT 05602.
Leave a message of thanks for them at the State House, call the Sergeant-at-Arms’ office: 1-800-322-5616 or 828-2228.
Or email them, at the addresses listed below.

Folks to email from the Joint Conference Committee (the folks who ultimately approved the funding!)
Rep. Robin Scheu - RScheu@leg.state.vt.us (Addison) (Co-Chair)
Rep. Jim Harrison - jharrison@leg.state.vt.us (Rutland)
Rep. TIff Bluemle - tbluemle@leg.state.vt.us (Chittenden 13)
Sen. Ginny Lyons - vlyons@leg.state.vt.us (Chittenden District)
Sen. Richard Westman - rawestman@gmail.com (Lamoille District) - WGDH's Senator!
Sen. Andrew Perchlik - aperchlik@leg.state.vt.us (Washington District) (Co-Chair) He was our biggest champion for this funding, and is a WGDR Senator, send him big WGDR/WGDH thanks!

Other community radio legislative support came from:

Rep. Bob Hooper (Chittenden-18) - rhooper@leg.state.vt.us - Introduced the original bill.

Rep. Rep. Lisa Hango - LHango@leg.state.vt.us (Franklin-5), Vice Chair of House Government Operations & Military Affairs - Made sure the bill passed out of their committee first!

Rep. Matt Birong - mbirong@leg.state.vt.us (Addison-3) Chair of House Government Operations & Military Affairs - Made sure the bill passed out of their committee first!

Rep. Teddy Waszazak - ewaszazak@leg.state.vt.us - (Washington-3), included our stand alone bill into the larger H.397 bill about emergency flood response, a key step.

Rep. Tom Stevens - tstevens@leg.state.vt.us - (Washington-Chittenden), ensured House Appropriations Committee understood the importance of the funding on rural communities.

Rep. David Yacovone - DYacovone@leg.state.vt.us- (Lamoille-Washington), also ensured House Appropriations Committee understood the importance of the funding on rural communities.

Senator Brian Collamore - bcollamore@leg.state.vt.us (Rutland District), Chair of the Senate Government Operations, allowed us to reintroduce the funding and bill when it didn't pass the House.

We also had many of WGDR & WGDH's area state representatives and senators express their support of community radio and this funding by voting yes on this budget (out of the House & Senate). So, thank your local folks too!

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It feels great to be able to share good news, especially on a Friday night.

Thank you listeners!

Llu Mulvaney-Stanak

Station Manager WGDR/WGDH

p.s. Don't miss other exciting things happening at the station. Coming up in the next few weeks: more new locally produced shows starting in June and our big birthday weekend, June 6-8. More info via the links and coming soon to your inboxes.