What About Community Involvement?

From day one the foundation and whole mission of WLNG's success, has been to intertwine with our community.

For charities, we raise hundreds of thousands of dollars. Not long ago, more than that for a single beautiful little girl dying of leukemia.

For businesses out here, we do hundreds of remotes per year - sometimes two or three live on location broadcasts on a single day.

For big local news stories, like Long Island's big Pine Barren's fires a few years back, our radio electronic news gathering (RENG) vehicles go out just like the fire trucks. For those particular fires, we stayed on station for 5 days straight,not just reporting the whereabouts of the fires, but coordinating all sorts of needs for the firemen. By our relaying those needs on the air, hundreds of local merchants rallied and brought forth every single thing that they needed and it wasn't just coffee and donuts.

One of our mobile units, on duty when TWA's 747 Flight 800 went down off Westhampton Beach, WLNG Radio became the first in the country to break the news of that tragedy, and within actual moments of the crash. At the time our crew on WLNG's Mobile # 2 happened to be doing a remote at the Jamesport Fire Department. Unlike any other East End radio station, having a number of news gathering vehicles out and about really gives us an edge.

Covered then, only on WLNG, were several spellbinding interviews with an old friend of the stations, Major Frederic Meyer. He was the National Guard helicopter pilot, who with his four man crew was first to hover over the burning waters after actually eye witnessing the plung and disintegration of the 747.

Meyer and his crew thought they saw missiles. Even though he was soon hushed up, WLNG had him on the air before the hush, live early the very next morning. Although missiles are not now the consensus, Major Meyer today is still speaks out, holding strongly to what he and his crew thought they saw.  Although the whole country never got to hear him back then on WLNG, Eastern Long Island certainly did.

"For Excellence in Community Service, WLNG has become an "NAB Crystal Station." Although we're lothe to toot horns, we have now been nominated for a "Crystal" three times as well as for a Marconi... "Station of the Year... Small Markets." Of America's 12,000 some radio stations, only a few have been so repeatedly gratified.

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