DJ Cen-Flo at WMNF in Tampa, Florida on July 19, 2025. Credit: Photo by Ray Roa

The resistance will not be televised, apparently.

In Late June, a budget veto from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis eliminated $100,000 that would have gone to community radio station WMNF Tampa 88.5-FM. And last week, lawmakers in Washington D.C. went along with a Trump rescissions request that yanked another $130,000 set to go to Tampa Bay’s 46-year-old community radio station.

Facing a $230,000 hole, WMNF staged a 15-hour emergency pledge drive on Saturday, July 19—and shattered the station’s single-day record fundraising record.

As of 11:12 p.m. last Saturday night, WMNF listeners had donated $280,250.52 in response to the station’s call asking the community to “join the resistance.”

That’s according to WMNF’s Development Director Shari Akram, who told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay that the drive included nearly 1,300 individuals who donated to the station by phone 359 times while pitching in 912 times online. The largest single pledge, Akram said, was $25,000.

Ahead of the drive, Akram told CL that listeners already give to the station an average of five times a year, and that the last thing she wanted to have to do was to reach out again. She also knew that WMNF listeners wouldn’t be silenced.

“They will want to protect their investment in WMNF because this independent community radio station means a WHOLE lot to a lot of people. And those that can, will fight back,” Akram wrote in an email ahead of the emergency drive.

As her hunch was validated last Saturday, Akram—who came to WMNF in 2022 after five years working in the civil rights nonprofit sector—was visibly emotional and called the drive a beautiful moment in the station’s history.

“It’s not just about the money. It’s wonderful that the community rose to the challenge, but this is an outpouring where people feel the urgency and the importance of protecting independent media. They see what the administration is trying to do, and they’re fighting back,” she said. “That’s what makes me emotional. A lot of times, I think we feel helpless with everything that’s going on. Then you see all this togetherness, these people joining in for one cause.”

Down the hall from Akram’s office, past a room where a handful of phone answers were starting to get a break after spending the day collecting pledges from listeners, WMNF’s General Manager Randi Zimmerman joined longtime DJ Cen-Flo for his “House Party” program to close out the drive.

Zimmerman’s first stint at WMNF, as a reporter and producer, happened in the late-’90s, a year after an emergency drive raised more than $120,000 in response to another legislative cut. This time was different, Zimmerman conceded, pointing to changing voting patterns in the Bay area and how television stations like CBS were caving into threats from the president.

“I think our community is going to continue to speak truth to power, but I think some of that is going to be a little bit harder than it used to be,” she told CL in the week leading up to last Saturday’s drive.

Outside the station’s second studio in the last hours of the drive, Zimmerman told CL that she was also touched by the support.

“I am emotional. I am elated,” she added. “I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was surprised, because $230,000 is a lot of money to raise in a day.”

Many folks, however, were ready to pitch in to make that day a success.

Akram told CL that about $73,000 worth of pre-pledges had already been collected before the sun came up last Saturday.

And while WMNF’s emergency fund drive was supposed to kickoff with the early-morning bluegrass show, Akram added that Jim Bannon, host of the station’s “Rustic Soul” program, wanted to do his part and raised $4,000 from 5 a.m.-7 a.m.

Listeners then helped Sid Flannery and Alida Duchene’s bluegrass program collect $35,000 before the “Words and Music” show by Best of the Bay-winning WMNF staple Marcie Finkelstein raised $81,000. “The Sixties Show” collected $41,000, while Michael “KTUF” Bagby’s long-running program “The 70s show” contributed around $34,000.

Akram said that by the time Laura Taylor—who served as WMNF’s development director for 16 years—came on air with her “Surface Noise” program, the station felt better about reaching the goal.

(Full disclosure: This reporter, who co-hosts a Friday public affairs program, was also on-air to help decades-long WMNF programmer Cheryl Mogul raise more money during her “Saturday Soulful Soiree” program from 6 p.m.-8 p.m.)

Cen-Flo, a 16-year volunteer programmer for WMNF, had been listening to the station all day by the time his high-energy show kicked off at 8 p.m. He told CL that he’d never seen a pledge drive do what Saturday’s did.

“This is not only about the music and having a ‘house party,’” he added. “It’s about your freedom, your freedom to think the way you want, not think how the leaders want you to think. Our listeners are smart and they said, ‘We’re not gonna take it.’”

Playing in the background as Cen-Flo thanked listeners?

A radio edit of The Isley Brothers’ “Fight the Power.”

This is a developing post.