An anonymous Californian has donated $50,000 to help heat the homes of Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program participants, with the condition that author Stephen King do the same. King agreed, pushing his stations’ fundraising goal for the program more than $100,000 over its goal, according to The Pulse “Morning Show” host Pat LaMarche.
With poor, elderly and disabled residents of the State of Maine facing deep cuts to the federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program which helps keep them warm in the winter, Bangor’s most famous resident King stepped forward to help out.
Via his three Bangor radio stations WZON 620 AM, WKIT 100.3 FM and The Pulse 103.1 FM, the Stephen and Tabitha King Foundation announced it will work with the stations to try to raise as much as $140,000 to be used for fuel assistance for low-income Mainers in the stations’ broadcast area.
As part of the stations’ “Help Keep ME Warm This Winter,” Pat LaMarche, host of The Pulse “Morning Show,” lived in the cold for several days last month. She moved into a small wooden shed
Zone Radio raised $241,820 for the Help Keep ME Warm This Winter campaign, shattering the original goal of $140,000. In early December, the Lerner Foundation gave $46,000 toward the cause. That amount combined with the $24,000 that King’s radio stations raised from listeners. King had agreed to match up to $70,000 in donations.
With the match, the goal of $140,000 was met, and that was supposed to be the end of the fundraising, LaMarche said. That changed when the agent of the anonymous donor from California called.
In all, the King Foundation has contributed $120,000 to supplement LIHEAP funds.
