Impact raises big cash for cause, challenges others
Don @ IdahoRadioNews | July 23, 2009
You’ve likely heard the story of Ryan Stockdale — the Middleton dad of three young children who have a rare blood disorder. The family was feature on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition in 2007. More recently, Ryan has developed what are called “suicide headaches” — something his wife described as “giving birth through your eye socket times ten” in an interview with KTVB.
The family has been unable to get its insurance company to pay for a procedure that would help eliminate the headaches – a fact that has garnered significant local media attention.
Impact Radio swung into action, and began a marathon radio broadcast yesterday at 2pm at a local Syringa bank branch. As of 11pm last night, Impact’s Darrell Calton tells me they had raised $6,000 – and that’s well before they hit the morning drive this morning.
KSRV/96.1 Bob FM, KWYD/Wild 101, KPDA/La Poderosa 100.7 and KQLZ/True Oldies 99.1 have been broadcasting live, helping rake in donations for the family.
Calton says he is putting $1,000 toward the cause — and hopes executives at other clusters will join him.
UPDATE: My colleague (and fellow blogger) Maggie O’Mara says she checked with Impact this morning — and the total raised through Impact’s efforts has ballooned to $35,000. WOW!
Don, we are currently sitting at about 36K as of 9:20 am. Thanks for the post!
47K !
at 10:47am the total is now over $43,000.00
Don,
Thanks for posting the story!
Regards,
Elliott
WOW…Great job.
Wow..this is pretty amazing. It shows what the community will do when they see a family in need, I’m sure we have all seen this kind of support at some point. It’s too bad though that we can’t help all the other families that are just as in need of medical help or family expenses.
As of 2Pm, 61K!
So, just to add to the recent comment…and not to get political here, but does anyone find it ironic how quickly our community will come together and support a family’s healthcare needs, but the same people don’t agree on universal healthcare? Maybe it has something to do with putting a face on it, but this is not the only family that is going through this and I’m sure many families have medical issues that don’t require experimental surgery (how will the community feel if this surgery doesn’t work?). I do really think this is great but I wish everyone would agree that maybe more families than just one need this help.
A further demonstration that this radio company is aptly named. Advertisers should take note.
“[D]oes anyone find it ironic how quickly our community will come together and support a family’s healthcare needs, but the same people don’t agree on universal healthcare?”
[raises hand] Yup, I find it ironic. It’s wonderful that this family is receiving help, but what about all the people who get denied health insurance money because of a “pre-existing condition” or who don’t have insurance at all who don’t get a radio station behind them to raise the money they need?
American shouldn’t have to beg for the health care they need.
I do not want this sound like an Oscar speech folks but I have got to thank a few people. At 5:30 pm the total raised in 27 hours for Ryan Stockdale hit $84,065.70. My OM, Mikey Fuentes, came to me Tuesday night to tell me that the insurance company had rejected Ryan for coverage. We decided it was unacceptable that the family lose the house this State and community helped to build for them in 2007 through Extreme Makeover. We made a decision and showed up on site at noon Wednesday to set up, started broadcasting at two and ended up staying the night and the rest of today.
I want to say thanks to the radio pros that work for me. Hats off to Mikey for recognizing the need, CK for being the driving force with the family, Jack and Bryan (True Oldies), Edgar and Claudia (La Poderosa), the BOB squad (they are mysterious) and Classic and Kevin (WILD) for continuous live coverage. My promotions directors Joey and Mona for pulling off a visual masterpiece and the street team, our up and coming broadcasters of the future. They did it without extra pay for all the right reasons. Thanks to my owners Wendell and Elliott for letting me do this the “radio way”.
Thanks to Channel 7 KTVB, Channel 2 KBCI and Fox 12 KTRV for showing people, real people paying it forward at the event. Thanks to the Idaho Statesman and the Press Tribune for their tireless online updates and thanks most of all to the listeners. They showed up and drove this entire thing. It really does take the entire village to raise a child, or in this case a family.
My point, aside from the thanks, is regardless of the endless prattle you hear about radio being dead; I can assure it is not. We can mobilize like no other media to tell stories that reach way down deep to touch people emotionally. We have the ability to move people to action. My payroll is huge when it comes to talent and if the advertisers do sit up and take notice as Muck Raker said, I am going to hire more talent because it is the human, local element that makes this business so great. Thanks broadcasters for taking the time to read this. I know a few of you might agree.
By the way Don, I turned off the filters and IRN has been back in the building for a couple of months. Keep it real.
Darrell Calton
Proud Damn GM
Impact Radio Group
I want to make two points. #1. In our building today there was a lot of huffing about the “marketing coup” Impact was scoring with this. I got home and set the DVRs to record Fox, 7, 6, and 2 news. I have two dvr units. I wanted to see how big this so called “coup” really was. Lead on seven for at least five minutes, top five on two and top five on Fox. NO Journal! Come on! I realize this competitive but this was a legit story! Set it aside Journal. This is good for our industry. Point #2. GM Calton got passed over at Citadel for the GM job last year. Impact is on the map. What were they thinking? Nice job Impact. You made our whole medium look better this week. If I ever have to change my name to “luckytoHAVEHADajob” you will be the first on my resume list.
Anyone who has ever received an email from Mikey Fuentes, knows what his signature says: “Great minds discuss ideas.” It seems like it was just a few hours ago, we were sitting in a promotions meeting on Tuesday, when Mikey told us about an idea he had, “what if we as a radio cluster, used the power of the airwaves, and the the power of a dollar to try and help Ryan Stockdale and his family.” In a day where cynicism runs rampant in blogs and on talks shows, and optimism is becoming harder and harder to find, it’s a credit to everyone who was in that meeting, and everyone who has gotten involved since then, that no one ever suggested that this couldn’t be done, or that maybe we were being too optimistic or too ambitious.
I am absolutely amazed at what has transpired in just over 48 hours. because of one idea. I don’t think any of us can begin to imagine the IMPACT that idea will have on the Stockdale family, immediate and extended. Imagine the IMPACT this will have on all of our listeners who took action, and even better, the IMPACT this will have on those pessimists who stood on the sidelines, or as it were, the comfy confines of the “comments” section on the Idaho Statesman’s website. This one idea has touched the lives of countless residents and listeners in the Treasure Valley. This single idea, has hopefully caused all of us to pause for a moment, amid our hectic and sometimes chaotic lives, to think about the things that really matter. And best of all, this one idea has given a neighbor, a friend, a husband, and a father fresh hope & optimism for the future. What a gift. Even though $80,000 was our goal, we cannot put a price on the results of this great idea.
My hat and my heart go out to Mikey for such a great idea, and to Darrell for mobilizing all resources available to achieve this goal. Congratulations to the promotions, on-air staff, sales staff, and everyone else for not giving up until we reached our goal. While some stood by and criticized, you kept moving and changed someones life forever. And most of all, we can’t forget our listeners and local businesses who made it all possible. I am privileged to have witnessed these events at such close quarters and to work for a company who allows great ideas to flourish.
I have heard of stations doing awareness drives…getting publicity. Not much gets done in the end. This is great,… money. Rubber hitting the road. I thought impact would never be a contender. I’m a huge fan now.
A standing ovation for Impact! Those of us with long histories in the industry remember when these types of things were common. You guys are a breath of fresh air from corporate media. Thank you for being great citizens!
To the other commentors: Socialized medicine and health insurance reform are two different animals. Ryan Stockdale has health insurance. His provider will not pay for non-FDA (government agency) approved procedures. If you read the proposed legislation, it won’t pay for them either. Ask a medicaid recipient how happy they are with their ‘government health care’ or ask a vet how pleased they are with the VA… Quit using this forum to spew your ridiculous diatribe.
This is how radio and television are supposed to work together by serving the community. Plain and simple. Congrats Impact.
That wasn’t a “diatribe” on health care, I was more speaking about how many families out there need help (I was just bringing up the irony of different ways of helping other people). Jim, you of all people should understand that there are so many families in this state in unfortunate circumstances that they themselves did not cause.
Maybe we should take this as an example and someone could step up and do this for a different family every week. Now that we know our community cares this much about helping others it might be a good to take it to its full extent.
“Ask a medicaid recipient how happy they are with their ‘government health care’ or ask a vet how pleased they are with the VA… ”
So your solution is what, exactly?
Please don’t tell me that national health care would be “rationed.” If you don’t have money or decent health insurance in this country, it IS rationed for you…and the ration is ZERO.
Editor’s note: Off topic all. Please don’t turn this into dailykos or foxnation :)