Blunt Youth Radio raised over $650 in a spaghetti dinner fundraiser last Saturday, according to students and supervisors who organized the event. The Blunt crew is currently fundraising so they can send nine students and three chaperones to the annual National Youth and Training Project Conference, which will be held in Albuquerque, NM this year.
“I thought it was gonna be like, my mom and some other people here,” said Maia Chong, a student at Portland High School. She gleefully counted the night’s earnings as her friends cleaned food and plates at Woodbury Campus Center.
“We had a really great turnout,” agreed Claire Holman, who advises the group.
Blunt has raised $6,425 from grants and donations and hoped to raise $1,075 more before last Saturday’s fundraiser.
Radio stations, big and small, from all around the United States will be in attendance and the students will attend seminars ranging from interviewing to selling radio stories said Holman,. They will also have training on themes such as “music mixing, developing your radio personality and audio theater.”
“Last year the conference was held in San Francisco and there were tons of protests. I got to go along with a woman who does radio news professionally,” said Hanna Silk Champaigne, a Portland High School student.
Chong , who has been with Blunt for two years, said that meeting other students was the most enlightening part of the conference.
“We found all kinds of interesting parallels,” she said. “Like people in Alaska are just like people in Maine – except they’re a lot more attractive.” Chong is also on a steering committee that chose this year’s city and organized the event.
Blunt is a radio program run by high school students in which they discuss topics like health care and their year-long focus on the presidential election. There are thirty-three members in Blunt and they meet weekly on Monday nights from 7:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. to discuss topics on WMPG. Members of Blunt will be putting on two of their own workshops at the conference.
News Editor John Bronson contributed to this story.
Ruth Miller can be contacted at [email protected].