Bangor radio station trades songs for donations to hurricane victims

BANGOR – Bangor’s classic rock radio station, WKIT, has given area residents another way to do something for the victims of Hurricane Katrina and get more bang for their buck at the same time.

WKIT 100.3 has been offering listeners the chance to request a song – any song – in exchange for a minimum $10 donation to the American Red Cross. Stephen and Tabitha King, the owners of WKIT, will then match all the donations dollar for dollar up to $150,000.

So far, the station has raised more than $72,000. With the Kings’ matching donation, that tops $144,000. And the total was expected to rise.

“We were going to stop last night, but we decided to keep going,” general manager Bobby Russell said Thursday morning. “I don’t know if we’ll get another $100,000 to meet the $150,000 level just from our listeners, but maybe this will spur on some business to give us $10,000, knowing that they’ll match it.”

Russell said the biggest pledge was for $25,000.

“An anonymous individual stopped by the station and gave us a check for $25,000,” Russell said. “We’ve gotten one for $4,000 and a couple for $2,500. If anyone wants to match that $25,000, though, they can go right ahead.

“We hope that if someone plans to donate to the Red Cross anyway, they should do it through us,” Russell continued. “Then they know that their $1,000 will end up being $2,000.”

Some of the requests have been a bit out of format for the typically classic and modern rock station.

“I played ‘Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road’ by Loudon Wainwright III,” Russell said. “We played ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’ by Cyndi Lauper; ‘I Like Big Butts’ by Sir Mix-a-Lot. I think people are just trying to torture us.”

There even was a request for “Puff the Magic Dragon” by Peter, Paul and Mary.

The station has done this type of fundraising twice before: once for the ice storm that hit Maine in 1998, and again in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. For the Sept. 11 fundraiser, WKIT sent slightly more than $150,000 to the Red Cross, after the Kings’ matching donation.

Russell said the fundraising effort was not just to promote the station.

“We just want to raise some money,” he said. “We’re having a lot of fun doing it, and I think it gives people an easy way to help out the victims [of the hurricane]. It’s a lot easier to call the station and request a song. When people call to make a request they say they appreciate having an outlet to help.”

Additional businesses that have organized relief efforts for the hurricane include:

. The Sports Complex in Hampden, which will donate all rental fees from the complex from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. from Saturday, Sept. 3, through Monday, Sept. 5, to the American Red Cross. Fees are $100 per hour for the big field, and $75 for the small field. For information, call 862-5050.

. Sonny’s Driving Range on the Cove Road in Winterport, which will offer the proceeds from sales of buckets of balls for the driving range to the American Red Cross. From 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 4, 100 percent of the money brought in from the bucket sales will be donated.