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Spring Fund Drive

The on-air portion of our fund drive has ended, but there's still time to help close the gap in our overall goal by March 31st. If you've yet to donate, please give now! If you've already supported or are a sustaining donor to KBCS, thank you so much!

$110,000 Goal

97.48%

Drive ends: March 31, 2024

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Message from the GM – March 2024

Dear KBCS Listeners and Listener Supporters

In today’s rapidly evolving technological landscape, the ability to adapt and embrace change is not just beneficial—it is essential. As we navigate through these dynamic and tumultuous times, it is crucial to recognize that change is not merely a disruption but rather seizing an opportunity for sustained growth and innovation.

Here are a few reasons why embracing change is necessary in the workplace:

  1. Stay Competitive and True to our Mission: Nonprofit, educational radio stations are evolving, driven, in large part, by rapid technological advancements and changing times. College radio stations like KBCS must be willing to adapt to new strategies and best practices made possible by advanced technology to further our educational commitment and stay true to our college’s community outreach mission.
  2. Foster Innovation: Change encourages creativity and innovation. By embracing innovative ideas and novel approaches to broadcasting, we create an environment where innovation can thrive while increasing our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion by building the opportunity for a remote workplace infrastructure with fewer physical barriers to participation.
  3. Enhance Sustainability: Change is inevitable, and radio stations like KBCS that can adapt quickly are better equipped to weather challenges and uncertainties. By fostering a pro-growth and innovative culture that embraces change, we cultivate resilience and agility, enabling us to overcome obstacles and emerge stronger than before.
  4. Cultivate Learning and Development: Embracing change requires continuous learning and development. It encourages our staff, students, and community volunteers to acquire new skills, expand their knowledge base, and embrace lifelong learning. This not only benefits individuals but also strengthens the organization as a whole.
  5. Increase our Operating Efficiencies: Staying abreast of new advances in automation and other time-saving broadcast software and hardware allows us to do more with less while providing a greater work-life balance for our small paid professional staff. Increased efficiencies mean that we can spend more time instructing and training more students and community volunteers. As we embark on the next phase of this critical journey of growth and transformation, our goal is to embrace change as an opportunity to innovate, evolve, and provide a model of greater inclusion. Let us embrace change not as a challenge, but as a catalyst for progress and expanding our educational outreach to our listeners and supporters across the greater Puget Sound and online everywhere.

Remember, technological change is not something to fear—it is something to embrace.

Best regards,

Dana Lee Buckingham
KBCS General Manager and Executive News Producer of World News Radio KBCS HD2
Heard online at www.worldnewsradiokbcs.com

KBCS Feature Programs: Women’s History

As Spring is upon us there are many changes and budding blossoms as the season shifts. KBCS also is going through some changes.  Please check out our KBCS Spring News post for more info and updates, programming changes and opportunities open to represent more communities and voices.

Celebrating Women’s History Month, KBCS scheduled some feature programs for broadcast during our 7am morning educational, information and news programming hour on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Our Body Politic stays scheduled on Mondays at 7am and Wednesdays at 5am until the end of the month.  Their poignant and professionally produced program is unfortunately going on hiatus. We hope Our Body Politic is back in production soon and we can add them to our schedule again.  Yes! Presents: Rising Up with Sonali remains scheduled on Fridays at 7am.  

Listener contributions assist KBCS in supporting many producers, studios and program resources. These resources provide more for our listeners.  Please tune in to some of these feature programs for this month or connect to the audio in our archives or links below. Links in this message go direct to the audio if you miss the live broadcast or access to the KBCS audio archives. Please support KBCS by making a financial contribution clicking the DONATE button at the top of our webpage.  Thank you so much for your support.

Below is the line-up for 7am, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays thru March.  Previous program dates are available on the 7am KBCS Features program page:  

 

Tuesday – March 12th

7am – News Letters on the Air – Black Women Writers in History

7:30am – Modern Language Association – What’s the Word? Women Public Intellectuals

Wednesday – March 13th

7am – The Kitchen Sisters – Buildings Speak: Stories of Pioneering Women Architects

Thursday – March 14th

7am – Popaganda – A Brief History of Women in Comics

7:30am – Modern Language Association – What’s the Word? Women Warriors

 

KBCS Spring Fund drive Week!  – Please contribute with a financial donation

Tuesday – March 19th

7am – The Hidden Economics of Remarkable Women

– HERO Training Africa’s New Female Leaders —

Wednesday – March 20th

7am –  New Letters On Air – Isabel Wilkerson – Pulitzer Prize-winning Journalist

7:30am – Making Contact – Black Women in History

Thursday – March 21st

7am- The Kitchen Sisters – House/Full of Black Women

 

Last week of the month –

Tuesday – March 26th

7am – Camino Real Productions, LLC – Margaret Sanger – Woman Rebel

Wednesday – March 27th

7am – I Spy: Real Life Spy Stories featuring Joanna Mendez, CIA’s Former Head of Disguise and Amaryllis Fox, former undercover agent

Thursday – March 28th

7am – Let’s Talk About Race: International Women’s Day is Every Day

 

Additional segments during the day are from:

SLB Radio – Women’s History Month

WDSE – Women’s History Month series

 

I hope these featured programs add to the education of our collective history and the celebration of Women’s History Month.  Please continue to share beyond this month.  KBCS strives to do more to represent more communities. 

 

Thank you again for your support.

 

Sincerely – Gregory D’Elia, KBCS Operations Manager

 

Interfaith Environmental Advocacy

Reverend AC Churchill is the Executive Director at Earth Ministry Washington Interfaith Power and Light. The Ministry helps religious communities advocate for strong environmental policies and provides strategic guidance to religious communities working toward environmental justice.

Churchill talks about how they came into the world of interfaith environmental advocacy and lessons they’ve learned through their work.

Producers: Lucy Braginski and Yuko Kodama

Photo: AC Churchill

The Women’s Liberation Movement in Seattle

The Seattle area has a particularly distinctive feminist history. Dr. Barbara Winslow, Professor emerita at Brooklyn College, Founder of the Shirley Chisholm Project and author of Shirley Chisholm: Catalyst for Change came out with the book Revolutionary Feminists: The Women’s Liberation Movement in Seattle last year. She describes why Seattle’s feminist activism is unique and highlights some key moments, including a story Fannie Lou Hamer shared in Seattle about her own experience with reproductive rights.

Producer: Yuko Kodama

Photo: Portion of book cover – Revolutionary Feminists: The Women’s Liberation Movement in Seattle

Vashon Green School

Here’s a highlight of Vashon Green School, a K-5 school, founded by educator, activist, photojournalist and farmer, Dana Schuerholz on Vashon Island’s seedbees farm.  

Producer: Yuko Kodama

Photos: Yuko Kodama

 

Astra – A Tree Facing Removal by Development

Gratitude Gatherings are held for trees facing removal in the face of new housing.  They’ve been an event in Seattle neighborhoods since Luma, a Western Red Cedar, was first honored and ultimately protected in the summer of 2023.

A gathering was held recently for another Cedar, named Astra, whose fate still hangs in the balance. Tree advocates want to see decisions about trees on residential properties taken out of the hands of the Department of Construction and Inspection and moved into a new city Department of Climate and the Environment.

Producer: Martha Baskin with help from Daniel Guenther at Jackstraw Productions

Photos: Martha Baskin 

KBCS Spring News

KBCS Spring News: Welcome to a Season of Renewal and Rebirth!

Dear KBCS Listeners and Supporters,

As the days grow longer and nature comes alive with vibrant colors, we welcome the arrival of spring with open arms. This is a time of renewal, growth, and endless possibilities. I hope this newsletter finds you all in good spirits and ready to embrace the wonders of this season of regrowth and new beginnings.

Here is what’s blooming at KBCS:

  1. Exciting New Programming:

Spring brings with it fresh beginnings, and we are thrilled to introduce a new series of educational and cultural program offerings on KBCS that were chosen to inform, educate, and offer a more structured forum for a more balanced debate of the prominent issues and topics of the day. On Monday, tune in for Philosophy Talk, a program that challenges listeners to identify and question their assumptions, and to think about things in new ways. On Tuesday, you can listen to the largest and oldest public affairs forum in America, the Commonwealth Club of California, where for over 90 years distinguished speakers have shared their experiences and ideas in a nonpartisan forum that strives to bring a more balanced viewpoint on the issues and a serious commitment to “stick to the facts.” Wednesday at noon, features the City Arts & Lectures series with leading figures in the world of arts and ideas in literature, criticism, science, and the performing arts. On Thursday, KBCS presents Open to Debate, a new program that seeks to restore balance to the public square through expert moderation, good-faith arguments, and reasoned analysis on topics of science, technology, politics, culture, and global affairs. Finally, we will round out the week with a cultural program offering that features one of our region’s favorite sons, Rick Steves, who is also one of public broadcasting’s favorite personalities with his weekly radio series Travel with Rick Steves, a program that features great conversations with special guests and travel experts. Check it out, each weekday at noon on KBCS.

  1. KBCS News Director, Yuko Kodama, has announced that she is leaving KBCS:

Our popular News Director, Yuko Kodama, has announced her resignation after serving for the past 7 years as the KBCS News Director. Yuko is an amazing journalist, a highly respected collaborator, and a compassionate human being. Her large body of work with its focus on stories of social justice will never be forgotten. I know that we will all miss her and offer Yuko our best wishes for wherever life’s journey takes her next. KBCS will now begin the search for our next News Director which will be conducted through the Bellevue College Department of Human Resources. A search team will be established shortly to begin the formal hiring process.

 

  1. KBCS Annual Spring Fundraiser kicks off on Friday, March 15.

Our KBCS Membership/ Development Manager, Ben Brandow, has set the date for our annual Spring Fundraising campaign. The on-air portion of the campaign will begin on Friday, March 15th, and run through Monday, March 25th. Join us for a celebration of our over fifty-year tradition of community radio programming across the Puget Sound region. KBCS is a “self-support” educational nonprofit radio station that depends on the financial contributions and generosity of our listeners and supporters for over 80% of yearly operating funds.

  1. World News Radio KBCS HD2 now streaming live online:

Some of you will be surprised to learn that there is more to KBCS than just our longtime flagship KBCS-FM-HD1 Community Radio format. KBCS also broadcasts and streams our World News Radio KBCS-HD2 News and Fine Arts radio programming around the clock. The base programming of World News Radio KBCS is a live satellite feed from London of the BBC World Service. The BBC World Service is one of the most respected and trusted news outlets in the world. This broadcast stream also features a variety of independent specialty news programs during the day. During the weekday evenings, sit back, relax, and enjoy beautiful symphonic concerts and chamber music from the world’s leading symphony and chamber music orchestras. On Sunday evenings you can listen to thought-provoking and highly imaginative radio dramas from the award-winning LA Theater Works. This program features contemporary actors from both stage and screen sharing their talents and creativity by performing in a “theater of the mind.” Our World News Radio KBCS HD2 programming can be heard over the air through our HD radio digital broadcast transmission, and now streaming online at www.worldnewsradiokbcs.com

  1. Stay Connected: Do not miss any of our popular live in-station interviews with musicians, during Iaan Hughes, Roots, Rock, and Soul show now heard each weekday from 1:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m. on KBCS-FM-HD1. Also join us during the evenings, overnight, and all through the weekend for an eclectic and diverse mix of amazing music programs produced and hosted by local community volunteers and students. Be sure to follow us on social media, subscribe to our KBCS newsletter, and visit our website regularly at kbcs.fm for the inside scoop on all things new this spring and much, much more.

As we embrace the new spring season’s spirit of renewal and growth, all of us here at KBCS are grateful for your continued moral and financial support as we embark on the next 50 years of great radio programming here in the beautiful Pacific Northwest.

Thank you for your time,

Dana Lee Buckingham, KBCS General Manager and Executive Producer of World News Radio KBCS-HD

BC Camila

Spring Blossom

11th Annual Farmworkers Tribunal

Community to Community Development and Familias Unidas por la Justicia organized 120 farmworkers to speak at the 11th annual Farmworkers Tribunal in Olympia on January 23rd. In this event, farmworkers shared their personal work experiences with legislators and their staff. Listen in on an excerpt from the Farmworker Tribunal and about some of the bills many farmworkers in these organizations supported.

For more from the Farmworkers Tribunal and to listen to other topics concerning farmworkers in Washington state, you can check out the podcast and radio show, Community Voz on KMRE.

Producer: Yuko Kodama (Special thanks to Sofia Garcia, Elias Lopez and Liz Darrow for permission to broadcast excerpts of the Farmworkers Tribunal) 

Photo: Community to Community Development

 

Poor People’s Campaign – Washington State

Reverend Dr. Kelle Brown, Senior Pastor of Seattle Plymouth United Church of Christ and faith tri-chair of the Washington Poor People’s Campaign discusses the history and spirit of the Poor People’s Campaign with KBCS’s Yuko Kodama.

The Washington State Poor People’s Campaign March to Stay Alive will be Saturday, March 2, 2024 at the State Capitol in Olympia at noon.  They recommend an RSVP and to view their Covenant of Nonviolence.

 

 

Asylum Seekers in Washington State

 
Though the Pacific Northwest is far from the southern border, about 14,000 new cases of immigrant documentation have been filed in Washington state within the past year according to Washington Immigrant Solidarity Network (WAISN). KBCS spoke with WAISN, Policy Manager, Vanessa Reyes about current conditions for immigrants, particularly at Riverton Park United Methodist Church  in Tukwila where about 200 are staying.
 
Stories on immigrants who have been at Riverton Park United Methodist Church:
 
Ways to help (links offered by WAISN and announcement from Blaine Memorial United Methodist Church)
 
(Diners are also urged to bring new blankets for the Riverton migrants.) 
 
Producer: Yuko Kodama