TUESDAYS 3PM

Salwa Khan:
Yvonne Thompson is a co-host of the Funk Sway radio program on KWVH and is also the Volunteer Coordinator at the station. Tell me what you do as the volunteer coordinator at KWVH.
Yvonne Thompson:
I get all of the volunteers for any fundraising events we have. I don't do on air volunteers, that's a whole separate thing. What I do is find and schedule volunteers for station fundraisers, and pledge drives, and for car shows, market days, whatever we do out in the community.

Salwa Khan:
How do you do that?

Yvonne Thompson: 
I call them. I beg them. I reward them.

Salwa Khan:
Are these people you know?

Yvonne Thompson:
They're people I know, or I've come to know. We run these announcements on the radio asking people would you like to volunteer? People do actually call us or send us an email and we have them checked out and then I call them. We have probably close to 70 volunteers now.

Salwa Khan:
You have a list of 70 people that you can call on?

Yvonne Thompson:
Yes, and most of these people have worked these events before. They know what they're supposed to do. We also bring in new people and they learn new things, and everyone loves it. Tim Kiesling (General-Manager) has been very generous about having parties at his house with the volunteers, and that gets them excited. They get to socialize and it’s kind of inspirational.

Salwa Khan:
How did you first come to KWVH?

Yvonne Thompson: 
I volunteered. I remember coming to the radio station building. At the time, it was just one large room and they were getting ready to build these studios. I started out just going to art shows, anywhere we could go, any event in town, and we'd set up a little table. This was to let the community know, hey, we've got a radio station. We didn't even have a tablecloth or anything, but we had some Vista print tee shirts and some KWVH stickers. We would have sign-up sheets. We just started there and then later, we started having fundraisers. The way it has evolved is just mind blowing.

Salwa Khan:
This sounds like it's a challenging job?

Yvonne Thompson: 
Not really. Everyone's very happy to do it. I think if more people knew how much fun it is, we would have a ton of volunteers. People do tell their friends, and their friends come, so it's good. I can't think of any challenges, really.

Salwa Khan:
What might make your job easier?



Yvonne Thompson:
I don't know. It's pretty easy. If it wasn’t fun, I wouldn't do it. It is kind of stressful right around Kentucky Derby or Casino (fundraisers) or whatever, just pulling everything together because I co-chair those events too, but they fall into place, and everyone has a great time.
I'll never forget the first Derby. It was crazy. We had so many issues, and I thought, Oh my, this is the biggest failure ever. But no one saw those issues, thankfully. And everyone said, Oh my gosh, this is great! And I thought, Really?

Salwa Khan:
What could you say to potential volunteers to encourage them to volunteer?

Yvonne Thompson:
We would love to have more volunteers because the same people can't do everything all the time, so it's great to have a large pool to draw from. It's a lot of fun and very rewarding. You work with some great people and all of these volunteers have become great friends.
It has been a good thing for everyone. I love the current volunteers and want to say thank you to them. They do a lot of work, and they do it happily and joyfully and they have fun and they make it easy for everyone else.

Salwa Khan:
Thank you Yvonne.