Record a Birthday Wish for WGDR

We invite you to record a short birthday message for WGDR’s 50th. Share a quick story or your favorite thing about the station.  

Here is how:

1. Call our office phone and leave a voice message at 802-276-0365. Or you can text a voice memo from a smart phone to that number.

2. Introduce yourself and share a quick story or your favorite thing about the station. 

We're going to try to use these as is - so just be sincere and concise - and don't swear of course!

If you can’t record, send an email to our station manager Llu at Llu@WGDR.org and we’ll read your birthday wishes live on the air over the weekend.

Have fun with it and thanks for listening!

Live from NOLA Jazz Fest!

We are very excited to provide special programming in partnership with our friends at WWOZ, New Orleans as part of the 54th Jazz Fest. 

WGDR & WGDH will live simulcast the Jazz Fest on the air a few times during the two week festival: 

Fridays, April 26 & May 3, 6-7pm and Saturdays, April 27 & May 4, 7-8pm. 

This year's Jazz Fest lineup includes dozens of New Orleans and Louisiana favorites, interviews with artists, and archival recordings of Jazz Fests from the past. The full schedule of live music will be posted at WWOZ.org, where you can stream the full festival.

We hope you enjoy tuning into this iconic Jazz Festival by way of your very own radios here in Vermont.

WGDR’s future on Goddard campus.

You may have heard the news of Goddard College closing and looking to

sell its campus. We want listeners to rest assured, we are not in danger of

needing to move right now.

Central Vermont Community Radio is an asset to the community and as a

renter on campus to any future owner. No matter what the future of campus

holds, we look forward to remaining a strong partner with whoever owns or

manages the Pratt building where we have been located for 51 years.

Goddard College gave us a generous lease for five years (2022-2027), of which we are

now in year two. They recognized that our success as a brand-new

nonprofit hinged on keeping expenses low for our first few years and we

are forever grateful for their thoughtfulness for our lease, but also for their

gift of the entire station to the community.

We want to assure supporters, listeners, and the larger community that the

station’s current arrangement has us where we are until at least 2027.

That said, moving a station of our size, age, and status as a brand-new nonprofit would be a significant undertaking. If you are interested in learning more about our planning process for what may come next, please reach out to Station Manager, Llu Mulvaney-Stanak: Llu@WGDR.org.

That Spring Fundrive was no joke!

UPDATED: Wednesday, April 10, 2024

We not only crushed fundrive goals, we set records.

❤️ 226 total donors (our prior record last fall was 157)

❤️ 68 new donors (25 goal)

❤️ 12 new sustainers (5 goal)

❤️ 32 returning donors (didn't give last year) (25 goal) (a new record!)

❤️ 56 streamers/out of staters (25 goal) (our prior record last fall was 29)

$15,871 of our $15,000 goal (a massive new record!).

Monday, April 1, 2024

Friends of WGDR/WGDH -

At our fundrive celebration party yesterday at the station, I told programmers that fundrives are about three things: raising money (of course), raising friends, and raising spirits. As you can see from the photo from yesterday (above), our spirits are pretty darn high, thanks to our fundrive donors. We also just had a ton of fun on the air, doing special shows, bringing in live music, hyping each other, thanking donors live, and ringing the cowbell - a lot. Truly, thank you to the programmers for making this a fun listening experience.

A special shout out to Chris Buckridge, host of Saturday's "Predictably Unpredictable," for logging 18 hours of live airtime and motivating donors to get us to key benchmarks during each of those hours. He won our first "Fundrive MVP Cowbell Award" which will be proudly displayed in the studio all year.

Gosh y'all, these last two weeks were no joke! 🙃

WE ARE REALLY PROUD OF THIS FUNDRIVE AND SO GRATEFUL TO ALL OF YOU WHO GAVE.

You heard us talk about it on the air. 84% of our funding comes from individuals like you. That's far above the 20% average for most non-profits. It is because of fundrives like this one, that bring in over 200 donors with modest gifts averaging $66, that we are able to be funded in this way. Nearly half of our donors this drive were the folks who give every single year, every single drive. We see you and we love ya' for it!

Those 68 new donors, combined to bring in $4K. New supporters ensure that we are building our capacity from community support. We are also so glad to have 26 donors who haven't given in the last year, to come back to support us with $1,500 toward the drive. Together, new donors and returning donors keep us rolling.

Looking ahead, our 12 new sustainers now join with the rest of our monthly supporters (77 in total) to fund over $1,400 a month (that's about 15% of our whole budget) - a huge deal for still such a young non-profit like us.

Lastly, our listening audience has exploded online. We now have over 3,000 folks listening each month - from far and sometimes not so far away (Richmond, Colchester, White River Junction, and other places around Vermont). These folks are investing in the station just as much as our broadcast listeners. The 56 streamers together gave $3K toward the drive.

These stats are not just for the fundraising nerds. They reflect a community that is stepping up to fund the success of WGDR & WGDH. Thank you all!

If you missed your chance to give, you still can! Just know that you can’t be entered to win the prizes. Give securely at WGDR.org or by check to “CVCR” and mail to 123 Pitkin Rd. Plainfield, VT 05667.

We will now return you to our regularly scheduled programming this week. Phew! 😊

As always, thanks for tuning in and supporting the stations.

Llu Mulvaney-Stanak, Station Manager

Llu@WGDR.org, 802-276-0365

April Special Short-Run Program: Uplift Conversations

As part of April’s Sexual Violence Prevention Month, we will air a short, limited-run series podcast from the Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence called “Uplift Conversations.” 

Over the course of the episodes, the Network discusses really big, overwhelming concepts with experts in domestic and sexual violence prevention across the state and beyond. Things like white supremacy culture, the patriarchy, and how can we support the survivors in our lives better. With the help of the experts, the co-hosts, Jess Barquist, and Llu Mulvaney-Stanak, attempt to break down these concepts into bite-sized nuggets of understanding that we can all integrate into our lives to make a big impact on ourselves and our communities. 

Tune in on Thursdays, 6-7pm, for the 6-episode series, starting April 4 and running until May 9. 

This series will temporarily pre-empt the rerun of Democracy Now on Thursday nights at 6pm. Listeners can listen to the Thursday show on our archives in the 8am slot at WGDR.org. 

Learn more about the Vermont Network at VTNetwork.org. 

April 8: Solar Eclipse Programming

Did you know the sun is going to “totally eclipse our Vermont hearts” on Monday, April 8? We’re expecting lots of folks to visit our totality path here in the state and we’re proud to offer a special program “Solar Soundtrack” for the actual eclipse, 2-4pm hosted by Sydonia of Theme Time Radio (first Mondays of the month at 7pm).

They will play a solar themed music show and have special guests, including an astrologer and famed, Mark Breen from the Fairbanks Museum and Planetarium.

The eclipse will start at 2:15pm and go through 3:29pm, with about 1 minute and 25 seconds of totality by the moon.

Central Vermont Community Radio will also be part of the Montpellier Alive statehouse events that day from 12-2pm by providing live DJing by our very own Xav (Xav Wax). More details coming soon to: https://www.montpelieralive.com/eclipse