Juneteenth
After much discussion, Congress passed legislation to establish Juneteenth as a national holiday. President Joe Biden signed the bill on June 17, 2021.
This series features perspectives on Juneteenth. It covers some details behind the historical event on June 19, 1865. You’ll also listen to local people speak on what Juneteenth means to them.
- Kwami Abdul- Bey is a Co-convener of the Arkansas Peace and Justice Memorial Movement and a Trustee of the Arkansas Historical Association. He talks about the details of June 19, 1965. He also addresses how the way we discuss Juneteenth is related to how we talk about the white mob attack on Black Wall Street and the current discussion on critical race theory.
- Fred Sims Jr. of Shoreline Organized Against Racism speaks about what Juneteenth means to him.
- Artist, Myron Curry has worked on a Juneteenth mural in Shoreline. Learning Black history has changed his life perspective.
- Local resident, Leslie shares her experience learning about Juneteenth in San Jose, CA
Resources for things to do for Juneteenth:
South Seattle Emerald’s list of events
Photo: courtesy of City of Shoreline
Producers: Kevin Henry, Gol Holghooghi, Yuko Kodama
KBCS General Manager Message – April 2021
With the arrival of much warmer weather this past week, many of us are anxiously looking forward to spending as much time as we can outdoors; either in or on the water, or perhaps hiking and camping under the stars in the beautiful Northern Cascades. I am not sure why, but somehow this spring seems to me to be even more beautiful. Maybe it is just another COVID fatigue thing, or maybe it is because I have been in such good spirits lately.
Late last week, I was notified by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) that KBCS has been awarded a grant of $144,746.00 from the Biden Administration’s American Rescue Plan Stabilization Grant. This generous financial support from our federal government will go a long way in further stabilizing our station finances and help ensure our long-term growth and viability in both our music and news programming. This grant funding will provide us with the opportunity to replace outdated broadcast equipment, embrace new broadcast technology, and still allow us to set aside funds for a much needed “rainy day” fund for the station.
KBCS is also the recent recipient of a very generous donation of $50,000.00 from our dear friend and supporter, Alyson McGregor, at the Purple Crayon Foundation. We have deposited the proceeds from that grant into a new endowment fund that we set up at the Bellevue College Foundation. All this good news comes on the heels of a successful spring fundraising campaign where we raised over $100,000.00 from our generous listeners.
Since the beginning of this fiscal year last July, and despite the all the obstacles in our way, we have made incredible progress in our combined efforts to become a fully self-supporting division of Bellevue College. The small but mighty KBCS professional staff along with our many passionate volunteers, and our loyal listeners have come together as a high-performance team, each focused on doing their part, to help raise the funding we need to keep this long tradition of community radio engagement on the air.
With less than three months to go in this fiscal year that ends June 30th, KBCS is well on our way to achieving, and in most cases, exceeding all our ambitious financial sustainability goals for this year.
As we enter the final lap and move toward the goal line at the end of this fiscal year, I encourage everyone that has not yet become a KBCS sustaining contributor to make that important commitment before June 30th.
Sustaining contributors provide one of the most stable and dependable sources of income for KBCS and our sustainers send a strong signal that they will continue to support our mission of community radio engagement now and into the future.
Again, thank you for all you do to support KBCS and our ongoing mission of democratizing the public airwaves with the voices of everyday people living in our community who otherwise would never have that opportunity.
Dana Lee Buckingham
KBCS General Manager and Proud Sustaining Supporter of KBCS
Sustainability Campaign Update – 3rd Quarter
On June 30, 2020, Bellevue College notified KBCS that the college would no longer supplement the station’s budget (read the original notice). In the past, KBCS depended on this supplemental funding from Bellevue College for around $150,000 annually, in order to have a balanced budget. The loss of supplemental funding means that KBCS needs to raise $150,000 above what it raised in the prior fiscal year to have a balanced budget and be financially self-sustaining.
The year-long KBCS Sustainability Campaign began on July 1, 2020 and continues through the end of our fiscal year on June 30, 2021 (read original announcement). The goal of the sustainability campaign is to increase fundraising by $150,000 over what was raised last fiscal year and add 1,000 new monthly donors so the station can create a more reliable base of support to budget from.
KBCS’s 3rd quarter ended on March 31, 2021. and you’ll find an update on our 3rd quarter below. You can also see our 1st quarter update here and 2nd quarter update here.
Update on Goal 1 – Add 1,000 new sustaining donors to the KBCS family of supporters
As of the end of our 3rd quarter (March 31, 2021), KBCS has added 611 new monthly sustaining donors of our 1,000 sustainer goal. By adding 1,000 new sustaining donors at an average of $12.50/month before the end of the fiscal year, KBCS can increase its revenue by $150,000/year, the amount needed to make up for the supplemental funding cuts from Bellevue College. Becoming a sustaining donor through a credit/debit card or directly through a bank account is quick and easy and best of all, you’ll always know you’re doing your part. If you haven’t already, consider becoming a KBCS Sustaining Donor today!
Update on Goal 2 – Increase overall fundraising for KBCS by $150,000 over last fiscal year
Thank you so much to everyone who has supported KBCS already this fiscal year and to all of our ongoing sustaining donors. With your help, KBCS’s 3rd quarter ended well. As of the end of our 3rd quarter, KBCS has raised $793,875 of our $1,073,259 goal for the fiscal year/Sustainability Campaign. As we enter the final quarter of our fiscal year, we’re confident that with the continued support of our generous donor-listeners, sustaining donors, and annual grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, we can meet our overall goal and make KBCS self-sufficient.
Again, on behalf of the KBCS staff, our talented volunteers, and everyone listening, we cannot thank you enough for being an active supporter of the station. You have brought KBCS so close to the finish line on our Sustainability Campaign and showed up when the station needed you the most. We look forward to serving you for years to come, and thank everyone planning to give soon, in advance.
Ben Brandow
KBCS Membership Director
Omari Salisbury of Converge Media Reflects on a Year of Covering our Community
It’s Fair Trade Friday!
The KBCS Spring Fund Drive begins today. We want to send you a KBCS coffee mug along with coffee from our partners at Equal Exchange as our way of saying thank you for supporting KBCS during what we’re calling Fair Trade Friday!
Today only, when you make a one-time contribution of $120 or become an ongoing monthly sustaining donor at $10/month, you’ll not only pick up a KBCS coffee mug, you’ll get a bonus thank you gift of a bag of fairly-traded, organic, coffee from our partners at Equal Exchange!
Click here to choose between making a one-time donation or setting up a monthly contribution, then select “KBCS Coffee Mug + Equal Exchange Coffee” as your thank you gift. It’s as easy as that!
Fair Trade Friday ends tonight at midnight, so don’t miss out on your chance to support your favorite programs and also get some great coffee to sip in your KBCS coffee mug when you tune in!
Thank you so much in advance for helping KBCS towards our goal of raising $100,000 and adding 350 new sustainers by March 28th!
General Manager Message – March 2021
This coming Friday marks the kickoff of the on-air portion of our annual spring fundraising campaign on KBCS. As we enter the fourth quarter of this critical fiscal year, I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone that has donated to KBCS so far this year. It is important to remember that Community Radio KBCS is a nonprofit, educational radio station and we bank on financial contributions from our listeners for providing the most important source of income for the station. My friends, this year we need to lean a little heavier on your support.
Due to the uncertainty over budgeting brought on by the COVID pandemic, KBCS has been directed this year to become an entirely self-funded department within Bellevue College. This means we can no longer ask for supplemental funding from the college to cover any deficit spending we incur at the end of the fiscal year. Like most people and organizations, KBCS must live and operate within our means.
Funding to cover the operating expenses at the station are derived primarily from three main revenue generating sources. Those sources are listener contributions, underwriting revenue from local businesses, and public and private grants. The ongoing pandemic has negatively impacted the revenue gained from business underwriting to just a quarter of our normally budgeted underwriting goal.
Most of the costs to operate the station are fixed expenses. These expenses include the monthly tower rental, the electricity bill, hardware, and software expenses, and other standard costs of doing business that make our broadcast possible. The largest expense portion of our yearly operating budget is for the modest salaries we pay our small professional staff. If we don’t raise the funds what we need to cover our expenses, those are where the painful cuts will need to be made. There is simply no other option in our fixed and variable expenses that we could cut that would make much of a difference. We run a tight ship and are good stewards of your donations.
The significant loss of planned underwriting revenue on KBCS has placed a much greater burden on the financial support generated from listeners like you to help make up that difference. We need your help.
As we enter this fourth quarter of the fiscal year, I am pleased to report that, thanks to our donors thus far, we have met our benchmarks for where we needed to be at this time; but, we still have a way to go to finish this fiscal year in the black. Our goal for the spring fundraising campaign is to raise $100,000.00 and add 350 new monthly sustaining donors.
Please join in with us during this ambitious spring campaign and make a generous contribution to KBCS. If you are not currently a sustaining contributor to KBCS I strongly encourage you to become one. Sustaining donors contribute an ongoing monthly donation to KBCS from their credit/debit card or through a bank draft. Consider becoming a sustainer at the $12.50/month level and just in time for the warmer weather ahead, we have a cool KBCS T-shirt to send you as a thank you gift. You can sign up to become a sustaining contributor to KBCS here. It’s a simple and straightforward process.
Again, thank you for your important financial support over the years to keep this beautiful dream of community radio alive and on the air here in the Pacific Northwest. Remember, no donation to KBCS is too small…or too large for that matter.
Dana Buckingham, KBCS General Manager and Proud Sustaining Contributor.
Takeaways from Japanese American Stories of Incarceration
For the past 24 years, Tom Ikeda, the founding Executive Director of Densho and his staff have been conducting oral histories of Japanese Americans who have endured the painful experience of being forcibly removed from their homes and incarcerated en masse by the United States government.
Targets of this Region’s Sex Trafficking Industry
Demystifying COVID 19 Vaccinations
Why did COVID 19 vaccination roll out go so quickly? Should I get vaccinated? Dr. Karla Fuller, Associate Professor of Biology at City University of New York and Project Lead for the National Human Genome Research Institute, shared her perspective on this at a Black Employees of Bellevue College-hosted virtual event last week. (more…)
Bookmarks from Bellevue College Library
The Bellevue College Library partners up with KBCS for these regular book notes. (more…)