Once again this year, radio free brattleboro will suspend its regular programming in order to broadcast the annual Homelessness Marathon starting at 7pm on Monday, February 14th and continuing until 9am Tuesday, February 15th.
This year's broadcast will originate from outside of Columbus House, a homeless shelter in New Haven, Connecticut.
The Homelessness Marathon has been called, "the most significant media event focusing on homelessness and poverty" by Donald Whitehead, director of the National Coalition for the Homeless. And it is unlike any other broadcast in the world.
The Marathon is almost entirely live, covers taboo territory and features the voices of people who are rarely heard on the air. Perhaps for this reason it has grown rapidly. The first Marathon, in 1998, was on one tiny station in central New York. The 7th Marathon, in 2004, was on 80 stations coast-to-coast, with another 30 stations across Canada carrying a parallel Canadian Homelessness Marathon.
As always, the 8th Marathon's broadcast booth will be set up outside, to dramatize the plight of people with nowhere to go in the cold, and calls will be taken from around the country. But there will be no on-air solicitations. The Marathon is a consciousness raising, not a fundraising broadcast.
rfb is one of only two stations in all of Vermont to carry the program. Live on air discussions range from "Housed Teens Talk With Homeless Teens" (from Portland, ME) to "Who Profits from Poverty?" For More information, including broadcast schedules and audio clips from past broadcasts, visit the Marathon's web site or rfb's webpage.