Y107 wins $50,000 for MU Children's Hospital

The station collected more than 1.1 million votes to win the contest.

By Kaylen Ralph

Published Feb. 9, 2010

The Children's Miracle Network announced Monday local radio station Y107/106.9 FM as the winner of its search for "North America's Most Caring Radio Station."

Y107 is one of nine radio stations under the umbrella organization Zimmer Radio Group.

"We knew from the vote count Friday night at around 11 p.m. that we had won," Zimmer Operations Manager Nicci Garmon said. "Today we were just waiting for the confirmation after they did an audit. We were 95 percent sure we had won, but it was nice to get the confirmation. Everyone is definitely so happy and really happy for the hospital."

UM Health Care System spokesman Matt Splett said the station ended up with just more than 1.1 million votes. For winning, the station will receive $50,000 from Foresters, a life insurance company, to gift to the MU Children's Hospital.

According to a news release from the Children's Miracle Network, the Zimmer Radio Group has supported the network for three years by hosting an annual radiothon. Each year, the proceeds go to support the Children's Hospital. The prize money from the contest will go toward the 2010 radiothon total.

"Money raised from radiothon can support new technologies for delivering patient care, comfort items like sleeper sofas and rocking chairs, new toys and games for the children's hospital playrooms," Splett said. "We evaluate every year where our greatest needs are for our patients."

Garmon attributes the station's success to a refusal to lose and the viral nature of the campaign.

"We just decided we were going to do it," Garmon said. "We asked people to vote in every way we could, Facebook, Twitter, phone, online. Once our community got a hold of it, they took it and ran. We all wanted the hospital to have the money."

Graduate student Matt Witthaus started a Facebook event to encourage people to vote that ended up boasting more than 5,000 members.

"Well I guess I first found out about the contest because I'm a first year medical student and I got an e-mail encouraging me to vote," Witthaus said. "I could have just voted myself, but I made a Facebook event and invited my friends in the hopes that the hospital could get more help."

People could vote for the station of their choice up to 10 times throughout the day for the entire contest. The contest lasted three weeks, from Jan. 18 through Feb. 5. Of the approximately 3 million total votes cast, Y107 received more than one-third of them.

"I thought I'd be lucky if I got half of my friends to sign up, I definitely wasn't expecting so many people to join and then invite their friends as well," Witthaus said.

To encourage voting within the community, Y107 set up voting booths at various local businesses including Culver's, Kaldi's Coffee and Hy-Vee. Patrons were able to use laptops set up in the booths to cast votes for the station. Additionally, Mayor Darwin Hindman declared last Friday "Vote for Y107 Day" for Columbia.

"We heard stories about people voting for us around the world," Splett said. "To all the people that supported Y107 and Children's Hospital, we say thank you. To have 1.1 million votes is quite an accomplishment. It really shows the support for MU's Children Hospital."