What is a Barnraising?

Since 2002, Prometheus Radio Project has partnered with community groups that have received a construction permit to build their station. These groups have waited a long time for the chance to build their stations, and the construction permit allows them to move ahead in the process. After receiving the permit, they have eighteen months to build the station and begin to deliver regular, community-based programming to their cities and towns.

For certion of these community groups, Prometheus volunteers crowd into trains, planes, and automobiles and rush to the site of the station to get it on the air! In the spirit of neighbors pulling together to put up a new building, Prometheus gathers Low Power FM radio applicants, journalists, radio engineers, students, lawyers, musicians, activists and folks from across the country to raise the antenna mast, build the studio, and flip on the station switch... all over a long weekend!

Dr. Kate Coyer, a refugee from corporate radio with a PhD in Communications, and a radio barnraising audio production instructor described the feeling well:

"I am never again going to a conference without a power tool in my hand."