For those of you who recently made a membership pledge during our on-air television campaign, thank you! Your gift to the station helps make the programs and services that you depend on every day possible. In fact, one of those programs, Restoring a Masterpiece: The Renovation of the Eastman Theatre and its new companion piece, The Vision Realized was our most popular pledge program. So, as a special thanks to all of our members, we will be re-broadcasting the program in its entirety without any breaks over the next several weeks. The first airing will be December 26 at 5:00 pm on WXXI-TV/HD, but you can find all of the airings and discover more about the program here on our web site.

And for those of you who did not have an opportunity to make a membership pledge or would like to make a year-end gift, there is no better time than now. With new government funding threats looming on both the Federal and State levels, your gift of support is more important now than ever. And if you make your gift before the first of the year, you will be able to get a tax credit for 2010. Though most of our membership dollars go towards programming, the effort afloat on the Federal level threatens many of the educational services and community outreach that WXXI provides. We are taking this new threat very seriously. You may have heard about an endeavor that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and stations across the country are undertaking to help draw attention to the importance of public broadcasting. By visiting 170millionamericans.org and signing up, you will help send a message to Congress that public broadcasting is too important to cut. You will be hearing much more about this effort as we enter 2011, but by voicing your support now, we can help raise the strength and visibility of public broadcasting to our elected officials in Washington.

Once again, thank you for your support of WXXI and the vital service we provide to this community. Your support, whether a membership pledge, year-end gift or online action, helps to strengthen and sustain WXXI for the coming year.