WRAL Raises $94,000 With Okla. Relief Telethon

It started as an interesting idea and resulted in $94,000 dollars for the people of Oklahoma who lost everything in the devastating May tornadoes.

Capitol Broadcasting WRAL Raleigh, N.C. (DMA 24) aired a commercial-free, primetime broadcast of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts’ award-winning production of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! That was edited to insert live cut-ins from the television studio.

Forty volunteers from the American Red Cross and the Salvation Army of Wake County staffed the phone banks for three and a half hours. All donations benefit those two national organizations currently supporting families in Moore, Oklahoma. WRAL’s Here to Help: Disaster Relief Telethon was also simulcast on statewide public television on UNC-EX.

“This was a true partnership, a uniquely North Carolina way to help those families who are hurting in Oklahoma,” says Steven D. Hammel, VP-GM of WRAL. “The results truly demonstrate the power of local television, both commercial and public, to be both lifelines in the moment of emergency and in the aftermath. We gave our community the opportunity to help and, like so many times before, they rose to the occasion with heart and generosity. This is who we are. It’s what we do.”

WRAL.com continues to take donations here.

The commercial free telethon and Oklahoma! broadcast was made possible with permission from Rodgers & Hammerstein: An Imagem Co.