While Florida is home, I will always be a product of my upbringing in New York. For New Yorkers, the holiday season begins when Santa enters Herald Square. If you watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade you know what I am referring to. Unfortunately, my personal upbringing does not account for the range of diverse voices we continue to add to the WMNF airwaves and our sensibilities. For example, Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights took place on November 12th this year. If you heard fireworks on what seemed to be a random mid-November Sunday night, you were hearing people celebrate this holiday. Like Christmas, Chanukah, and so many other winter festivals, at WMNF we figuratively and literally invite the light to enter the darkness of winter. We also strive to welcome knowledge over ignorance and spread the word of peace and goodwill towards all.
This month, I want to emphasize our desire at WMNF to recognize the darkness, bring light and warmth into it, and accept that this cycle is part of the natural process with an understanding that we can always choose to foster human kindness.
Over the course of this calendar year staff and volunteers have been incredibly busy sharing their internal light with others. The WMNF news team launched The Scoop, five-minute of locally produced, mission-driven headlines that cover local and statewide topics. The Scoop airs at 1pm Monday – Friday and will soon be a subscription offering. The Events Team has been busy booking WMNF favorites like Chuck Proffit and a Tom Petty Tribute, along with expanding the core with the Harlem Gospel Travelers and Keller Williams. And we brought back Tropical Heatwave after a six-year hiatus! WMNF Outreach has been to more events than I can list starting with both the MLK Day and St. Pete Pride parades, Standing Ovations, the Shruti Festival, Veg Fest, the River Tower Festival, and Juneteenth celebrations. At the station, we’ve held the celebration of 50yrs of Hip Hop, Latin Heritage Party, and an Open House to show off how your community radio station creates the stuff you love to listen to. The station and its incredible volunteers received seven recognitions from Creative Loafing in the Best of the Bay.
As this calendar year comes to a close, we at WMNF want to enthusiastically and sincerely thank you for your participation in this great institution we call community radio. What comes out of the speaker only happens because of the incredible community that continues to give its volunteer power, a whole lotta money, and pieces of their hearts and minds each week. Wishing you all a happy and healthy New Year.
—Randi M. Zimmerman, WMNF general manager
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