VENTURA : Disc Jockey Rises High to Help Poor

Mike Reynolds went out of his way to encourage people to bring donations of canned food for the county’s poor--way out of his way.

The disc jockey lived 35 feet above ground at the Poinsettia Plaza parking lot in Ventura for two weeks.

“Being up here grabs people’s attention and hopefully reminds them to contribute a few cans to Ventura County Food Share,” Reynolds said earlier this week from his 6-by-8-foot box attached to scaffolding.

Other than the few breaks he took to go to the bathroom, Reynolds stayed inside his box 24 hours a day, often amusing himself by waving to passing cars and yelling for them to bring in canned food.

But there hadn’t been that many respondents.

The response was slower in getting under way this year than last, he said. The plight of the homeless and hungry were big social concerns last year, he said, but this year the recession and problems in the Persian Gulf have taken over the spotlight.

“I did this last year and the cans were just rolling in,” he said. “We ended up with about 18,000.” This year the effort yielded about 22,714, said one of Reynolds’ co-workers at KCAQ-FM. Reynolds climbed down from his perch at noon Friday.