well, it turns out some of the thieves who stole toys from the salvation army have been caught. this is wonderful news ...

i should probably explain in a little more detail what happened yesterday -

my radio station, WOKQ, works closely with the rochester, NH salvation army on a program called "wish upon a star". it's one of those deals where people go to a store, pick up a star on a tree, and then purchase and donate what each child needs for christmas. this year there were already 40 or 50 families that potentially might not have received assistance, due to the lack of donations and tough times others in the area have already been having. still, we managed to raise quite a bit of money and did all we could.

we got news around 5:30 in the morning that the storage facility in rochester had been broken into in the middle of the night between tuesday and wednesday, and many high-end items (as high-end as a toy drive can get) were stolen, such as gift certificates, pillows, cd's, dvd's, and more. this thoroughly angered all of us, for good reason - i mean, who steals from CHILDREN, especially NEEDY children, one week before christmas?! the toys had already been sorted into bags to deliver to the families, and the distribution date was supposed to be today (friday).

so we jumped into action and devoted the rest of the show to taking donations and trying to find out who could have done such a thing. mark, one of the hosts, offered up five hundred dollars out of his own pocket to try and find the perpetrators. soon calls started pouring in. i took donations from newspaper deliverers, local businesses, day care centers, neighbourhoods, trailer parks ... you name it, i probably talked to them. it was such an amazing show of support.

but then! around 7:50 or so, i see someone at the door and run outside to open it - it's former NH governor craig benson! so i bring him into the studio ... he grabs mark's pen, and writes a personal check from his charitable trust for ten THOUSAND dollars.

we were floored.

we still hadn't heard from the captain of the salvation army yet, so the rochester police got ahold of him and woke him up. when we got him on the radio and told him we had almost fifteen thousand dollars for him, he was absolutely speechless. i don't blame him; he said the donation would be able to replace all the presents that were stolen, as well as make up packages for the rest of the families that originally had not been able to be served.

this is why i absolutely love radio. while you see telethons and whatnot on the television, how many other types of media do you think this could be possible in? and how quickly do you think this could happen? the best part about working in radio, and i say this to many, is the connection you forge with your community. you just can't find it anywhere else. we've been there for people during the ice storm and the aftermath, we're there with news right as it happens (like today, we reported the unprecedented death sentence of michael addison right as it happened), and we have the ability to change the flow of our programming on a dime to accommodate all that. while there's a lot of radio that is automated and, i guess soulless, it's nice to be part of a broadcasting movement that cares about the community a little more than the average bear.

after the show, a few of us were discussing the events of the morning, and we mused over the fact that, while it shouldn't be this way, sometimes it takes a bit of a crisis to bring out the best in people. the fact that in just over three hours we had almost fifty donors call in - some that had no power or heat [still!], some that only could donate ten or twenty dollars, some that were young children and some that were retired - was completely overwhelming and refreshing for me. even with everything that goes wrong these days, and even when people are completely down and out, it's wonderful to see that they can reach a little bit further and give to those who truly do have it worse - because there's always someone that has it worse.