KVCR wins grant to share stories of Inland Latino groups
In January, the CIELO Fund at the Inland Empire Community Foundation awarded $280,000 in inaugural grants.
Grants were awarded to programs that address education equity, civic engagement, health access, economic mobility and immigrant services in the Latino community. The CIELO Fund grant-making committee also wanted to ensure that the stories of those Latino-led organizations leading this work were told.
“We thought it was important to focus on narrative shifts for the Latino community,” said Jesse Melgar, the CIELO Fund’s founding chair and foundation board member. “We did a scan of the region’s media outlets and valued KVCR’S regional role as a source for news and allowing residents to share their stories.”
KVCR TV/FM is a service of the San Bernardino Community College District. It started as Valley College Radio in 1953 and added KVCR-TV in 1962. Today, KVCR provides NPR content on KVCR FM 91.9 and Public Broadcasting Service content on KVCRTV, Channel 24.
One of KVCR’S goals is to reflect the Inland Empire’s diversity in its programs. KVCR is also home to First Nations Experience, which is the only Native American and World Indigenous TV channel available nationally.
FNX is shared through 22 broadcast affiliates and reaches about 74.5 million households.
Last year, Melgar met with college district Executive Vice Chancellor Jose Torres to share the fund’s vision of launching a program that would cover the stories of nonprofit organizations serving the Latino community in the Inland Empire. In these early conversations, they discussed what the program could look like and the district, which owns and operates KVCR, was invited to apply for a CIELO Fund grant.
The CIELO Fund awarded KVCR $20,000 in seed money to launch “IE Latino Voices.” The program will be hosted by Yvette Walker, an Upland resident who is bilingual and has more than 20 years of communications experience.
“IE Latino Voices” will include 24 segments and launch will Wednesday on KVCR 91.9 FM. The program invites leaders of Latino-led and serving organizations to share their experiences, work and the impact of that work. Melgar hopes these stories will reach audiences that may not be familiar with the guest’s stories and that this will be the first of many media partnerships for the fund.
KVCR 91.9 FM is also a broadcasting platform for students at San Bernardino Valley College and Crafton Hills College. The station hosts four interns every semester who receive handson experience with state-ofthe-art equipment.
Connie Leyva, who was hired in December 2022 as KVCR’S executive director, hopes that they will be able to expand opportunities for interns in the future, but it will require additional support.
“We provide local content as a trusted news source on radio and TV,” Leyva said. “We know what we want to do and the programming the community wants to see.
“My job as the new executive director is to bring in funds to get reporters out.”
Leyva also will be looking for support to continue “IE Latino Voices” and to create new programs that reflect what local listeners want to hear and learn. She encourages the community to tune in and discover KVCR’S free programs and consider becoming a member.
“This is your local media,” Leyva said. “Everyone at KVCR is dedicated to the community, local NPR and local PBS.
“Give us a watch and give us a listen. I think you’ll be impressed.”
Information: kvcrnews. org/ie-latino-voices or kvcr. org/