WDSU Raises Nearly $55,000 In Tornado Aid

Over two nights, Hearst-owned WDSU New Orleans (DMA 51) and the Second Harvest Food Bank of Greater New Orleans and Acadiana raised nearly $55,000 in donations to benefit victims of the tornadoes in Oklahoma.

The effort was called “Help For Oklahoma,” and was initiated by WDSU President-GM Joel Vilmenay and Natalie Jayroe, president-CEO of the Second Harvest Food Bank.

The phone bank launched on Tuesday evening during WDSU News at 6 p.m. and continued through 8 p.m. On Wednesday, volunteers again staffed the phone lines from 6 to 8 p.m.   

“Because we had partnered with Second Harvest last year during Hurricane Isaac, we already had the infrastructure in place to set up the phone bank in a matter of hours,” said Joel Vilmenay. “And putting our people and resources in motion to make this happen is what we enjoy doing most. It’s 100% in line with our promise to be ‘on your side.’ I couldn’t be more proud of our community for their generous response.”

On Tuesday, WDSU committed all of its local commercial breaks from a special edition of NBC Nightly News and a network special presentation from Oklahoma, using that time to run on-air appeals for donations directly from the WDSU phone bank set. The station also ran a continuous on-screen ticker with the “Help For Oklahoma” phone number during programming to keep the phone lines busy. A similar effort took place on Wednesday during Entertainment Tonight and Dateline NBC. The phone bank was manned by volunteers from Second Harvest.

“The response was tremendous. The donations kept pouring in even after the on-air appeals had ended.” said Jayroe. “All of the money raised will go directly to benefit people in Oklahoma; and it wouldn’t have been possible without WDSU and the kindness of people here in Louisiana who were willing to help another community recovering from a natural disaster.”