Hawaii Public Radio deserves community’s support

Some may think it odd to call a fundraising campaign a "celebration." But that’s exactly what Hawaii Public Radio calls its fall fund drive, and for good reason.

This is the time when flesh-and-blood listeners and fans pick up their telephones and step out of the anonymity of a radio audience to celebrate a community treasure by signing up as members.

Individual membership is the lifeblood of HPR because the organization isn’t as much about radio as it is about the individuals who make up our community.

The whole idea of public radio is to provide a service to reach audiences that are not served by the mass media. Public radio is not about mass markets or mass audiences. Other media are commercially successful by pursuing mass and supporting themselves through the sale of advertising. Hawaii Public Radio has a different purpose.

These islands are 2,500 miles from the nearest inhabited land mass, so we look to public radio for news, analysis and entertainment from the wider world.

Within these islands, we have a unique and vibrant community, which Hawaii Public Radio serves with station-produced talk shows, political debates and music programs curated by local hosts, including a popular Sunday afternoon program devoted to contemporary Hawaiian music. Local artists get coverage and local festivals and events are promoted on HPR.

Hawaii’s unique characteristics make a community network like Hawaii Public Radio a prime medium, both to celebrate who we are and to connect us with the world beyond our shores.

For more than 30 years, Hawaii Public Radio has relentlessly pursued its mission to serve the community.

From its humble beginnings with a single tower and a shoestring budget, HPR is nearing completion of its statewide network, with two streams of content heard from Kauai to Hawaii island.

Local news coverage has grown from a single reporter (with a news bike, not a car) to the largest radio news organization in the state.

In its development, HPR has never lost its focus on quality.

All of that takes money, and HPR has invested the pledges it has received over the years to realize the aspirations and dreams of its audiences.

That’s why HPR calls its fundraising a "celebration." We’re celebrating the community coming together to invest in ourselves.

The recent fall "Celebration 2014" fundraiser came up short of the funds required to maintain HPR’s programming. The stations are going back on the air on Wednesday with a "closing" campaign to make up the difference.

Here’s hoping that the community takes the opportunity to invest in an organization that invests in them.