FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Feb. 26, 2019
WNED ǀ WBFO Media Contact: Heather Hare Dir., Corporate Communications (716) 845.7155 • [email protected]
Community Challenged to Support Education Gifts to WNED | WBFO March 5 Matched to The Teacher’s Desk by Five Star
On Tuesday, March 5, donations to WNED | WBFO will make double the impact on our community, thanks to WNED | WBFO’s Community Challenge, sponsored by Five Star Bank, benefitting The Teacher’s Desk. Five Star Bank will match each donation to WNED | WBFO with an equal gift to The Teacher’s Desk, a store where educators receive free books, school supplies, and many other teacher resources for the students in their classrooms.
WNED | WBFO and Five Star Bank have teamed up in this Community Challenge to inspire Western New York and Southern Ontario to make a difference for their public broadcasting stations while also helping teachers provide much-needed educational resources to their students.
The Teacher’s Desk was founded by John Mika, a retired autoworker who was working as a substitute teacher in urban and suburban Catholic schools. He saw a stark difference in classroom supplies between city and suburban schools and decided that every child deserved the same access to supplies, regardless of where they attended school. Since October 2011, the organization and its volunteer team has distributed more than $10 million of supplies to teachers at schools throughout Western New York.
“We are excited to partner with two great educational resources in our community – WNED | WBFO and The Teacher’s Desk,” said Martin K. Birmingham, President and Chief Executive Officer of Five Star Bank. “Five Star Bank will match all donations up to $12,000 to WNED | WBFO on Tuesday and give them to The Teacher’s Desk, which works to correct supply disparities for schools with high concentrations of poverty.”
The Community Challenge is a program in which WNED | WBFO teams up with a local organization to inspire the community to give. WNED | WBFO uses the challenges on WBFO-FM 88.7 and WNED-TV to educate the community about the chosen charity, while soliciting donations to the stations. Each gift to the stations is then matched by the corporate partner and given to the charity, effectively doubling donors’ impact on the community.
The first Community Challenge, sponsored by Five Star Bank, benefitted Child and Family Services Haven House, which works to prevent domestic violence and promote peace in the home. Among the many services it provides in the community are counseling, emergency shelters, and long-term transitional housing for those impacted by domestic violence. The Community Challenge, held in November 2018, exceeded its original goal.
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About WNED | WBFO The WNED | WBFO family of stations broadcasts PBS, NPR and Classical music programming throughout the Western New York and Southern Ontario regions. These high-quality programs and community outreach services inform, enlighten, entertain and educate our local and regional communities. Our member-supported stations include WNED-TV (PBS), WBFO-FM 88.7 (NPR), Classical 94.5 WNED, JazzWorks, WNED thinkbright Create and PBS KIDS 24/7. WNED-TV is also a national producer of award-winning documentaries. Additional information about WNED ǀ WBFO can be found at wned.org.
About Five Star Bank Five Star Bank provides a wide range of consumer and commercial banking and lending services to individuals, municipalities, and businesses through a network of more than 50 offices throughout Western and Central New York State. Additional Five Star Bank information is available at www.five-starbank.com, on Twitter, and on Facebook.
About The Teacher’s Desk The Teacher’s Desk is the store where teachers shop free for books, school supplies, and teacher resources for students in their classrooms. Its mission is to distribute free school supplies to students in need, to encourage teachers and to provide purpose through volunteerism. More information can be found at theteachersdesk.org.