Tractor-Trailer Filled to Help the Needy – Greater Media Radio the WRAT’s Broadcast for the People a Success
In just two days, employees of Greater Media radio station the WRAT (95.9), Lake Como, filled a 40-foot tractor-trailer, its 18th trailer in 16 years, with food and non-perishable items to help local New Jersey residents as part of its annual Broadcast for the People drive.
They filled the trailer with food for the FoodBank of Monmouth and Ocean counties; new and gently used clothing for Family Resource Associates; and toiletries (soap, tooth brushes, tooth paste) for Holiday Express.
Among the donations were almost 2,000 tooth brushes, 350 tubes of toothpaste, 9,123 pounds of clothes (up from last year’s 7068 pounds); 15,622 pounds of food (up from last year’s 15,345 pounds) and 268 frozen turkeys. Monetary donations and gift cards totaled $1700.
Doug Sjonvall, promotions director for WRAT, remarked that some notable donations included a high school that came in two school busses. One bus had 40 students, and the other was stuffed with donations for the trailer. A local fire department came at night, with sirens and lights blaring, each vehicle packed with donations they collected. One donor arrived with a food-filled shopping cart on the back of his flatbed tow truck. One donor mentioned how this is his 12th year donating, including one year when they had to live in a hotel for a while because they had nowhere else to go. Their thought was that somewhere there are always people worse off than they are.
“It’s events and stories like this that makes us appreciate our listeners even more from year to year,” said Sjonvall. “Don’t forget that after Sandy in 2012, we collected the equivalent of three trailer-trucks that year!”
Sjonvall said, “Listeners too far away to come to our location at Shop Rite, Neptune, made donations at satellite locations, such Brave New World, Toms River, and Verizon Wireless, Manalapan. We sent the promo team and on-air personality Gotts with a WRAT van to collect the donations. Each time the van came back stuffed to the roof with clothes, food and turkeys.”
Helping the Rat Pack unload the trailer were FoodBank volunteers, 10 McGuire Air Force Base volunteer cadets, and seven people from the local Pepsi distributor.
Sjonvall said, “The FoodBank informed us that for every dollar donated, that is the equivalent of three meals, and every 1.2 pounds of food is equivalent to one meal. With everything we collected this year we were able to provide Monmouth and Ocean County people with approximately 15,000 meals.”
Broadcast for the People is sponsored by Pepsi, Mini of Monmouth, Surf Taco, Major Tool, Coors Light/Shore Point Distributing, and NJ Lottery. For further information, contact Doug Sjonvall 732-681-3800 x-306.
WRAT-FM is a radio station of Greater Media, Inc. Greater Media, Inc. is the parent company of twenty-one AM and FM radio stations in the Boston, Detroit, Charlotte, New Jersey, and Philadelphia markets. Greater Media also owns a group of weekly newspapers in central New Jersey and several telecommunications towers, located throughout the United States.