10/26/2024
Mark your calendars! WDRT Presents: Halloween Dance Party โ a Hurricane Helene Relief Benefit on October 26, 6-10pm at the Viroqua VFW, 751 S Washington Ave.
๐ Wear your costumes and bring your family and friends for a night of music and fun with DJs and live bands. No cover but we will be encouraging donations! We will also have candy and a selfie station.
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6PM: DJ Mia with family-friendly pop hits
7PM: Revenge of the Swamp Monsters!! (Supergroup ft. Daddy Long Legs + Pie City Twisters + special guests)
8PM: B***y Tunes for the Dairy Air with MC SL!M
10PM: Karaoke
๐ All donations will go to rebuild WART-FM Community Radio in Marshall, NC. The station was previously broadcasting out of a red caboose which has been decimated by Hurricane Helene. They set up a temporary broadcast station out of a storefront and have proven to be a lifeline to the local community, being the only accessible source of critical information during a natural disaster. You can see more on their page: https://www.facebook.com/wartfmradio
If you canโt attend the dance party but want to help, you can always donate online to the station: https://www.wartfm.org/ and click "Donate".
Get more info on our website: https://www.wdrt.org/relief/
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This event is the brain-child of Julie Tomaro, a Viroqua resident, who is friends with Chad and Chuck the co-founders of wART. She asked Chuck for some background:
Here are some basics about the station. We have been on the air since 2015. Chad and I are co-founders of wART. We are part of the Madison County, North Carolina Arts Council. Our beloved Southern Railroad Caboose sat between Main Street and the railroad tracks. The station was located about 8-10 feet from the tracks and another 20 feet to the French Broad River.
We have a lot of local interest in our station. People tune in for our wide variety of music โ and also to hear the local personalities and get information. Most of our DJโs or personalities had no experience in radio, but just wanted to share their love of music with the community. We broadcast at 95.5 on FM and also via livestream at www.wartfm.org and we also have an app. You can find the app at the Apple Store or the Google Play Store, just search for wART FM 95.5.
As you may know, we are in a mountainous area, so the FM signal doesnโt cover all of our county, Madison, but the livestream and App covers those areas we canโt reach with FM.
In the past, we have broadcast local festivals and we used to broadcast on Friday nights from the old Depot, which was right next door to the caboose. Friday nights there was lots of local talent who would show up and just pick and local folks would come in and listen and dance.
On September 27th, record floodwaters swept our caboose off its track and it now sits on its side about 200 yards from its original site. The depot, itself, was swept away, along with most of the upper end of Marshall, NC.
Last Saturday, October 5th, two friends and I got the station back on the air. We are operating from the Community Housing Coalition/Reclaim Madison store. We are in the front window โ and ever since then we have been broadcasting live from 8am-5pm with news and information about services available to those in need.
