A December Miracle With 38,475 children eagerly awaiting Christmas toys, WFTV in Orlando pulled out all the stops to help the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves with their annual Toys For Tots collection. The goal was to match the number collected in 2004 – 103,000 toys by December 16. The campaign kicked off November 7 with PSAs and two subsequent live remote events. Yet, by December 12, the warehouse had only 11,000 toys – not nearly enough to meet the needs of even a third of the children. Realizing they needed a miracle, WFTV aired additional PSAs to update the totals daily. On December 16, the station asked the community one last time to drop off toys at the station or a local automotive showroom. By 9:00 that night, Orlando had responded with a total of 129,617 toy donations and $78,644 in cash donations.

Extraordinary Efforts, Extraordinary Results In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, WSB-TV and Cox Radio stations in Atlanta joined with the American Red Cross and The Salvation Army to raise funds for victims. For three days, volunteers staffed a phone bank from 4 p.m. to midnight to take individual donations. In addition, WSB’s community partner, Wachovia Bank, opened a relief collection account, and local Kroger stores offered customers the opportunity to “round up” their total purchase amount in order to donate. The result: Over $3.3 million was raised in 72 hours, thanks to the efforts of WSB and the generosity of Atlantans.

Georgia’s Children Forgotten No More Georgia has 15,000 foster children – often seemingly forgotten by the community and the foster care system. With an idea conceived in its newsroom, WSB-TV in Atlanta decided to embark on a yearlong campaign to highlight the state’s foster care system. Formalizing the effort through a mission statement and internal board of directors, the station set a goal to increase the number of qualified foster parents and to connect children living within the system on multiple levels. WSB has used its leadership position, contacts, news and community programming to support the effort. On-air projects have included a prime-time special, a town hall meeting and a volunteer phone bank that logged over 2,000 calls of interest in seven hours. Through the campaign, WSB staffers hope that they can make the cause of each and every foster child a better understood one.

Shining Light on a Hidden Crisis More than 30,000 children in the Charlotte area suffer from some type of mental illness. Many go undiagnosed or untreated due to a lack of awareness. WSOC-TV sought to enlighten the area about “Charlotte’s Hidden Crisis” through two half-hours of local programming, a phone bank and a special link on its Web site. Combined, these initiatives provided an in-depth look at how local children and families live with mental health issues, as well as resources for parents to learn more. The “Hidden Crisis” programming is part of “24 Hours for Children,” a WSOC-TV multimedia initiative to provide information and resources about community issues that impact children.