Florida Catholic | Spirit FM ‘Sharathon’

Spirit FM hopes the spirit moves listeners

Diocesan radio station's ‘Shareathon’ fundraiser begins on November 3rd.

CARLOS BRICENO | FLORIDA CATHOLIC ST. PETERSBURG BUREAU EDITOR

Published: 11.02.07

TAMPA | Spirit FM, the diocesan radio station, usually likes to invite listeners to call in with some of the reasons why they listen on the Friday before the Shareathon, its annual fundraising drive. The station refers to that Friday as “a day of blessing.”

One year, a woman named Rita, no last name given, called in with a sad story.

She said she had moved to Florida from New York because of a new job. But after she arrived, the job fell through and she and her two kids ended up living in her car. She credited Spirit FM, which she listened to on her car radio, with helping her through the ordeal. To show her appreciation, she donated $5 for the fundraiser.

Once listeners heard the story, they started calling in with offers of help for Rita. Several people called to offer a place to stay or offers of jobs, said Abby Reifenberg, Spirit FM’s promotions director.

To Reifenberg, that story perfectly illustrates the value of the station, which will hold its next Sharethon from Nov. 3 through Nov. 9.

“It just shows how we are just an instrument of God’s plan,” she said. “We have ideas of how we want things to work, but it’s all God’s plan. And his plan is always much better than ours.”

During the Shareathon, callers can make pledges of how much money they want to donate to help keep the station on the air. This year’s goal is $500,000, said John Morris, Spirit FM’s station manager.

Over the past few months, the station has been conducting a capital campaign called “Sharing Faith, Building Spirit,” hoping to raise $3 million to build a new, state-of-the-art, 10,000-square-foot facility that would be constructed next to Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Ybor City. Right now, the station’s employees work out of a dilapidated, one-story, almost 50-year-old building near Christ the King Parish in Tampa.

So far, the building campaign has netted about $1.3 million, Morris said.

Station employees understand that conducting a Shareathon fundraiser during the time of a capital building campaign is a lot to ask their listeners.

“There’s always a need in the church,” Morris said. “There’s wants and there’s needs. We need to continue to evangelize through the radio for the coming year and in order to do that, there are certain things we need to pay for that are out of our control. So we come to our donors and ask them for help on an annual basis.”

Wendy Templeton, the station’s program director and host of its “More Music Middays” program, said asking people to donate for the new radio station and also asking for money for its day-to-day operations — which includes employees’ salaries — can be looked at two ways.

“It can be looked on one side as challenging, but on the other side we are reaching new listeners every day,” she said, referring to the outreach the station is making in parishes across the diocese to encourage people to donate for the capital campaign.

The theme for this year’s Shareathon has been dubbed “Faith, Family and Friends.”

“We want to bring everyone together as a community in sharing our love for the Lord, reaching up our hands in praise, and then reaching out to one another and serving one another in love, our brothers and sisters in Christ,” Templeton said. “It’s real important that during this Sharethon ... we want everyone to be excited about the ministry and where we are going.”

The station is not only hoping to expand by moving into the larger and newer facility, but it has also positioned itself to offer Hybrid Digital (HD) radio. HD radio upgrades the FM signal from analog to digital, which results in a higher-quality sound and allows stations to multicast. This allows listeners to choose different programs on different channels. Listeners will have to buy special radios in order to listen to the different channels, and will be able to choose from contemporary programming, talk and catechetical programs.

The expanded programming probably won’t start until the new station is built, Morris said.

He is confident that not only will it be built, but that this year’s Shareathon will be successful. “Five hundred thousand dollars is a big number, especially (when) we’re doing a capital campaign,” Morris said, referring to the monetary goal for the Shareathon. “There are other needs around in the Bay area. That has always been the case since I’ve been here in the last 20 years. But God has always provided. When there is a real need, our budget has always been taken care of.”

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Spirit FM hopes the spirit moves listeners

Diocesan radio station's ‘Shareathon’ fundraiser begins on November 3rd.

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