Northern Lights Public Radio

Website: kchw.org
Budget Size: 25 to 50K
Region: Northeast
County: Stevens
Artistic Focus Area: Music/Radio Broadcasting
Community Accelerator Grant Award: $12,500 in 2024, $22,500 in 2023
Primary Impact Category: Employment, The Future
Mission Statement: The Organization’s arts, cultural, and music programming covers a wide spectrum of expression, from traditional to experimental and reflects the diverse cultures it serves. Northeast Washington Community Radio Guild (DBA Northern Lights Public Radio) supports a wide range of arts and culture including performing and visual arts such as local musicians, theater groups, and art work and art events.

Nestled in a picturesque valley between an excellent golf course, ski resort, and casino hotel, Chewelah, to its 2,600-odd residents, feels poised for a breakthrough as a Washington tourist destination. “The word is definitely starting to get out there about this little dot up in the mountains,” says Northern Lights Public Radio’s Station Manager, Chuck Ritchie. For Chewelah and the people who love it, the question at hand is how to manage the city’s expected growth over the next several years in a way that is authentic, promotes small businesses, and centers the well-being of its citizens.

The answer, they are finding, is through the arts.

Thirty years ago, the aluminum plant that employed about 75% of Chewelah’s workforce closed with no warning, devastating the local economy overnight. Ever since, says Chuck, the city has been licking its wounds – but over the last few years, things have slowly been shifting. A beautiful new art gallery opened on the downtown strip, drawing artists from across Northeastern Washington to Chewelah for exhibitions and community events. The Performing Arts Center began running a conservatory program for teenagers, as enough young people were staying in town after high school graduation to fill out a cast for the first
time in decades. Chewelah gained certification as a Creative District in 2019, and its growing ranks of artists and arts advocates have successfully raised funding for projects such as enhancing the local amphitheater with its own permanent sound system and installing a sculpture by nationally known artist David Govedare, who called Chewelah home, in City Park.

Connecting all these threads is Northern Lights Public Radio. Born in 2014 as the passion project of lifelong radio enthusiast Scott Schlafman, Northern Lights has always seen itself first and foremost as a community organizing project, dedicating significant airtime to artists and arts initiatives across Stevens County. For several years now, the station has run a monthly show interviewing visual artists about their work, inspiration, and creative process. “We help them get their story out there, let listeners know where to see their art, where to buy their art,” says Chuck. “Other artists see them getting promoted and supported in a way that is not intimidating, and it’s bringing more artists out of the woodwork.” “And it’s so good for our younger population,” adds the station’s volunteer Fundraising Director Melissa Silvio. “It encourages them to see art as something that’s accessible.” Northern Lights also promotes other arts nonprofits and their fundraisers on the air, hosts concerts by up-and-coming musicians in the 50-seat theater attached to its station, and handles equipment operation, music scheduling, and emcee duties for multiple seasonal festivals every year, which bring visitors from across the region to Chewelah.

Typically, an independently run community radio station like Northern Lights would be fully reliant on sponsorships and donations, but Chuck and Melissa say that in one of Washington’s poorest and most rural counties, the sponsorship model cannot single-handedly subsidize their day-to-day work. Grants – and particularly those offering general operating support, like the Community Accelerator Grant – ensure that they have enough money in their coffers to keep the lights on and the radio tower up on Wright’s Mountain fully operational.

Thanks to Community Accelerator Grant funding in 2023, Northern Lights’ Board of Directors were able to keep the station going when its founder unexpectedly moved out of state, and soon brought Chuck on board as the station’s first paid part-time employee. (Chuck estimates that he puts in approximately 40 hours of volunteer labor every week, but stresses that he would not be in a position to donate that time without his stipend.) Their funding this year has again supported Chuck’s position, as well as musical licensing fees, streaming royalties, software expenses, and the constant grind of repairing outdated radio equipment. This support has freed the station up to focus on collaborative arts initiatives with organizations such as the Chewelah Creative District, Chewelah Arts Guild, and the Chewelah Performing and Cultural Arts Center, all also 2024 Community Accelerator Grant recipients. All in all, the Community Accelerator Grant has helped infuse more than $65,000 into Chewelah over the last two cycles, funding which is helping the community shape its rebounding economy around the arts in a way that Chuck and Melissa say feels organic and sustainable – something that would have been unimaginable just a few years ago.

Both Chuck and Melissa spend their limited hours away from the station sitting on boards and participating in planning committees – “if you’re on one here, you’re on three or four,” Melissa laughs – but neither seems fazed or intimidated by the amount of time and energy they are putting into Chewelah. They say their community understands that they are at an inflection point, and that the city they are building now may be the most important creative project of them all.