Grant boosts local radio programming

Sometimes, finding the voice of a community takes more than years of lived experience there.

Retired educator Emily Forstner has called the Mat-Su home her entire adult life. She said she thought her years in the classroom teaching language arts to thousands of students gave her good insight into Valley families and their part in the greater community ecosystem. But it was not until she took on a new project for Radio Free Palmer, also known as Big Cabbage Radio, that she realized how siloed her existence has been.

The project is Voices of the Mat-Su, a 30-minute broadcast that began airing and streaming in July at the local community station. It continues to run on the fourth Friday of each month, with past episodes archived in podcast format.

Just a few episodes into what is planned to be a two-year series, Forstner said she realized that her Mat-Su experience, rich as it was, did not come close to connecting her to the essence of the community.

“You’re still pretty isolated in that classroom,” she said. “I thought I knew the community really well. But I learned that I don’t.”

One of the first Voices of the Mat-Su broadcast, which featured several residents with lost or impaired vision, explored the challenges of sightless living. Subsequent episodes have dealt with often unseen issues like foster parenting, hunger, and the re-entry of felons into society after prison.

Forstner said telling these stories has been a humbling experience because they made her realize how far removed she had been from some elements of life in the Valley.

“It makes me feel more connected to the larger community,” she said.

Connecting listeners to the larger community is the point of the series. Mike Chmielewski and Lee Henrikson, who effectively share station manager duties at Big Cabbage Radio, hit on the idea for the series after hearing about a similar program at a National Federation of Community Broadcasters meeting. “There are people who are not seen in the Valley,” Henrikson explained. “Our goal, through first-person narrative, was to explore various aspects of the community that may be less visible and help surface their stories.”

None of it would have been possible without a $90,734 grant from the Mat-Su Health Foundation, which has been funding nonprofit organizations in the Valley since 2007. Henrikson, who also serves as president of the board of directors, said applying for the grant helped sharpen the focus on expectations for the program.

“We needed to be clear on what we were trying to achieve,” she said. “It was a very big deal to get this grant. As a station, we need to grow a little more to be sustainable. This gives us structure to grow.”

She said having an organization like the Mat-Su Health Foundation in the community is invaluable to the quality of life here.

“They provide a lot of support for nonprofits that do the basics,” Henrickson said. “It makes me want to live up to their expectations.”

Chmielewski agreed. “The Mat-Su Health Foundation is game-changing for the Valley,” he said. “There’s a reason why we have so many nonprofits doing good work.”

The Mat-Su Health Foundation shares ownership in the local hospital, the Mat-Su Regional Medical Center, ensuring it continues to grow and meet the needs of Mat-Su residents. MSHF invests its share of the profits into scholarships, programs, and grants with the goal to improve community health. One such grant was to Radio Free Palmer for Voices of the Mat-Su.

Chmielewski has served as the station’s chief operation officer since it first went on the air in 2011. He estimates he has done around 10,000 interviews in that span of time, always taking care of business with annual budgets typically falling in the $50,000-$60,000 range. So the $90,000 grant provided a huge boost both financially and organizationally. “We learned early on that both the Rasmusson and Mat-Su Health foundations ask you to up your game. You have to work up what you’re about in order to make a grant happen. You have to be thinking strategically long-term.” Located at 89.7 on the FM dial in Palmer and Wasilla, 89.5 in Sutton, and 88.3 in Chickaloon and Glacier View, Big Cabbage Radio is an all-volunteer station staffed by 25 or so dedicated radioheads who produce shows, staff the office, stream meetings, engineer shows, and do fund-raising. In addition to periodic grants, funding is provided by memberships and underwriting. The state’s Pick. Click. Give. initiative also helps promote community engagement through radio.

The bulk of the current grant will go to compensating Forstner, who has been a volunteer at the station for several years. Her unique approach to covering the school board made her a natural to host Voices of the Mat-Su.

After teaching high schoolers how to be journalists, Forstner viewed the new challenge as an opportunity to be a journalist herself.

“I really believe in community radio. It serves an underrated purpose,” she said. “I’m really committed to that piece of our society.”

But she said she quickly realized how hard it is to be a journalist.

“It’s almost like teaching, because you’re never off. You’re constantly thinking,” Forstner said. “Every story is a unique responsibility. You’re given a gift. When you get to know people and their story, there’s a responsibility to not mess it up.”

The results have been both gratifying and intimidating, as each success builds expectations for the next episode. But Forstner said the immediacy of the topics, and their relation to national news, is why people should tune in.

“Once a month, you can listen to a neighbor with an issue you might read about in a headline,” she said. “These stories show me that there are pockets of real goodness in the community, and that the Mat-Su is a kind and caring place where people are good to each other.”

FIND OUT MORE

Mat-Su Health Foundation

www.healthymatsu.org.

Radio Free Palmer

www.bigcabbageradio.org

Voices of the Mat-Su archives

www.bigcabbageradio.org/category/voms/