Fundraiser supports community radio station
People could sip on a cup of freshly brewed java and surf through boxes of old vinyl’s in hopes of adding to their collection during the inaugural CKXU Java and Jams Record Sale and fundraiser at Cuppers Coffee and Tea over the past weekend.
Proceeds from the vinyl sales from the old Love and Records Music Festival collection, Friends of CKXU business discount cards, Love and Records t-shirts and from a Cuppers - created fundraising brew will go back into the radio station.
“We typically get out in the community a couple times of year, just to fundraise for operational costs, overhead costs, the types of things that people don’t really think about when they think about radio,” Genna Bourchier, CKXU 88.3 FM executive director.
“We are a fully volunteer generated radio station, we like to say we’re community generated, donor generated. We really wouldn’t be around without the people that donate their money and time to us. So that’s sort of what we’re here to do today with the fundraiser.”
The consistent funding that CKXU receives is from student levies.
“As a campus licenced station, we are lucky enough to receive a student levy from students,” said Bourchier.
“So we get a semesterly levy from each student at the University of Lethbridge and that helps cover most of our staffing costs. But fundraisers like this are really the thing that allow us to continue to get out into the community, continue to engage, continue to create impact, continue to create resources and opportunities for local musicians, local artists, local non-profits and organizations who are also working in the arts and cultures community that are looking to amplify what it is they’re doing in the community .”
Bourchier said CKXU plays a pretty specific role in the radio realm of Lethbridge.
“So most of what you hear when you tune into CKXU will be Canadian content, specifically Alberta and Lethbridge-based content,” said Bourchier.
“So if you’re looking for local music, if you’re looking for a little sampling of what’s available, CKXU is a great place to find that. Like I said, all of our programming is also volunteer created. So people come into the station all the time saying, ‘Oh I’d like to do maybe like a rock radio show’ and then we say cool, let us train you and give you the resources to do that. So you can have spoken word content, you can have music content, it’s really up to the person coming into the radio booths.”
The radio station is a multigenre and multi-format.
Other fundraisers for the radio station include the highwayclean up in May, live-music based events and the annual Fun Drive Telethon in October.
More information on fundraisers and the radio station can be found at www.ckxu.com.