 The Blunt Youth Radio Project produces a weekly call-in talk show that airs Monday nights on WMPG radio. High school-aged youth from the Portland area, staff, the show, and members are trained in all the aspects of radio production. The show has won several national and statewide awards. Portland High School Junior, Iris San Giovanni, is a Blunt Youth Radio member. I got involved with Blunt Youth Radio. I was actually given a flyer at my high school during lunch. And my father, he was a DJ back in the 80s with WMPG, so he was like, oh, you should definitely check it out. I mean, I was going to on my own anyways. And I came to an open house. And the people there were just really welcoming, really friendly. And I decided to give a shot and then quickly learned that radio is something that I really like. I didn't really know what I was getting myself into, but then I got trained in all areas of radio, hosting and engineering and reporting. And I soon learned that it's an environment where I could thrive in. I've been given a lot of great opportunities through Blunt Youth Radio. Actually, my freshman year, I made a piece about my dad's homelessness, which ended up then going on to winning first place for the main association of broadcasters. And it's really great to really get creative, 60 seconds, excuse me, to just grab the audience's attention. So it's fun to work with friends. I remember doing a show on, there was a show on expeditionary learning. And what we did for the promos, we just collected animal noises off of YouTube and sort of made it like a safari, kind of just going off of that. And we just have fun with it. At the open house, besides providing free pizza and soda and a raffle, some of those fun little gimmicks, we allow potential members to really watch a live show in action and we give them a tour of the station. Jake Lichter is a junior at Portland High School. The director of Blunt, Claire Holman, is a family friend, so it was sort of predetermined that both me and my brother were going to do Blunt. And he did it, he's two years older than me, and he did it all throughout high school. And when he got started doing it, I started getting more curious and then two years later, after he was doing it, I joined. And mostly it was just, I wanted to be a part of radio because I'd always been interested in the radio and I've always listened to the radio. And I don't know, I felt like this was really the only way I could get involved. The first time I was ever out like a meeting in Blunt, we all went downtown with recording kits and walked around in the freezing cold weather interviewing people. This was the first time I'd actually been to Blunt as a member. Just a big group of kids, all with recording equipment, went around town interviewing people about teen partying and teen relationships. And just like on the first day, I really felt like a part of the media. And I felt like I was involved with something, like a real reporting and news organization. Last summer, we took a trip to New York with, we have like a fellow radio station, WNYC, and they invited us to do an audio slam, which was an original idea that we created and facilitated. I've been able to talk to many political candidates and just like prominent members of the media, all through Blunt and through Blunt's affiliates. If you want to get involved with Blunt Youth Radio, it's really just a matter of coming in and starting to show up. Like the more you come and the more you learn, then the more you can do here. I just started showing up more and more. And every show, I started to get more into the process of making radio. And I got trained in different things, engineering, recording, hosting, reporting. And just like through being involved and just putting stuff into it, that's how you get involved. It's actually a really easy process. The easiest way to get involved would be to go to www.bluntradio.org. There they can find the contact info of our director, Claire Holman. And so they can just call her up. She'll give the information about coming to one of our live shows to see the action.