BELLINGHAM - Donations large and small have kept the Spark Museum's radio station, KMRE, on the air for now after museum president John Jenkins gave word this past summer he would no longer support it himself.
The uptick in donations last year was a temporary patch that needed a longer-term solution, Jenkins and station manager Brent Davis decided. KMRE - rebranded as "Spark Radio" to go with the museum's new name - must raise $28,000 by the end of the year or it will shut down, Davis said.
"This money should be mainly coming from underwriters with contracts to support (KMRE) for extended periods," Davis wrote in an email. "It would only take a few dozen underwriters at just around $100 a month each to keep KMRE afloat."
The 100-watt station can be heard from Ferndale to Fairhaven, and east to Deming.
One new donor who sponsors a Friday night program said something truly original would disappear if the station at 102.3 FM went silent.
"It's just precious and worthwhile," Rocket Donuts owner Jim Swift said about programming that includes the Science Fiction Hour named after his shop, turn-of-the-20th-century wax cylinder recordings, and the classic Groucho Marx quiz show "You Bet Your Life."
"That's the sort of wonderful stuff that's just not available anywhere else," he said.
That's why Swift, whose eatery is around the corner from the museum, was agreeable when Jenkins approached him for a donation.
"It was just a very, very natural thing to have Rocket Donuts give some money," Swift said.
His shop has a 1950s sci-fi theme, and he loved watching the TV version of a radio show that now airs on the Rocket Donuts Science Fiction Hour.
"I grew up with 'Space Patrol' when it was a TV show," Swift said. "It was my favorite Saturday morning event."
Before August, Jenkins was paying out of his own pocket and selling stored pieces of his collection at what was formerly called the American Museum of Radio and Electricity to keep the station financially viable.
"I'm a volunteer CEO," Jenkins said. "In my other role, I'm a donor. I was covering that huge loss."
Davis last year met a fundraising goal of $8,000 set by Jenkins. The station manager raised $4,500 in cash and got businesses to underwrite KMRE for a monthly fee.
More donations have been pledged already.
"I know there are some more donations coming" amounting to thousands of dollars, Davis said.
The Chuckanut Radio Hour will become an underwriter and pay the station every time the show airs, he said. The program also promised to donate to the station all of the proceeds from one of its major shows. Davis said that single contribution should amount to about $1,000.
"I'm confident, if I can continue selling underwriting," Davis said of the station's prospects. "That's our main bread and butter."
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