At Public Stations’ Pledge Drives, Love Is On the Air

They were on the same wavelength, but Alison and Richard Gerber, devoted listeners of KCRW, didn’t know it until they met. Alison answered the phones. Richard supervised the volunteers. At the end of the station’s pledge drive, they spoke at a volunteer party, and Richard asked for her phone number. They married within a year.

Public radio and television pledge drives--the seemingly endless pleas for donations that drive listeners and viewers to distraction--have sparked so many local romances that some stations encourage listeners to volunteer and perhaps pick up more than the phones.

Could it be that public broadcasting, that bastion of good taste and thoughtful conversation, is also a highbrow meat market?

Two KPCC radio hosts married station volunteers. At least one person proposed in another local pledge room. And a man answering phones during one drive is said to have asked out a woman who called in to make a contribution. Though these affairs may be attributed to providence as much as public radio, station officials say that the commonalities of most listeners bring them together once they finally meet in person.

“They’re all so good-looking,” Sarah Spitz, producer and publicity director for KCRW, said of the listeners she’s seen at the Santa Monica station. “They all dress so nice. They all look like savvy, sophisticated, cultured people.” And in radio, where the audience members rarely interact, the pledge drive is one of the few ways to meet them.

Involvement in clubs or organizations of any kind generally improves one’s chances of interacting with people of similar interests. But volunteering can add a deeper meaning to the involvement--and the relationships that are formed through it. “People tend to connect with others around their values,” said Nina Atwood, therapist and author of “Be Your Own Dating Service.”

Station officials describe public radio and television audiences as educated, cosmopolitan and curious about the world at large. Public radio attracts listeners with such a particular sensibility that personal ads sometimes use it as a point of reference for potential soul mates, as in “SWM 32, 5’10” blue eyes, short dark hair....Loves: contemporary art, modern design, fashion photograph, visionaire, KCRW ....Cool SF, 21-31, into same?”

At KPCC’s pledge drive earlier this month, about two dozen volunteers crammed into a room at Pasadena Community College one Saturday morning. In between phone calls, the volunteers chatted about favorite recipes, books and movies. More than one person noted that it was one of the few places in town to find an “intellectual crowd.”

“You’re in a room doing a good deed,” Spitz said. “It’s a safe environment. You don’t feel like you’re being hit on.”

Even though sometimes you are.

During a radio break at one drive, KPCC “Morning Edition” host Steve Julian popped into the pledge room where M.J. Miller was answering phones. He “flirted shamelessly,” Miller noted, until he had to return to the studio.

By the time he was off the air, though, Miller had left. Desperate to see her again, Julian searched through the station’s pledge forms for her e-mail address. He sent her a note and asked her out on a date. They celebrated their one-year wedding anniversary last month.

“If nothing else, it is a great opportunity to meet people like you,” Miller, 34, said. “You may not find the love of your life, but you can meet some pretty nifty people.” Julian, 43, has since told the story on air, encouraging listeners to volunteer and find their own mate, but his story is not unique to the station.

Larry Mantle, host of KPCC’s “Airtalk,” met his wife, Kristen, during a party for the station’s pledge drive volunteers. (When Mantle approached her at the Arcadia bowling alley, Kristen, 33, said she “just figured he was schmoozing.” Then he asked her to have a drink, and she realized, “That’s something he’s not doing with everybody.” They have been married eight years and have a 9-month-old son.)

Other stations have seen similar relationships form. In her 20 years as director of volunteers at KCET, Dorothy Kemps said, at least four couples married after meeting at the television station’s pledge drives. But at Long Beach’s KLON, membership manager Sean Heitkemper said most of the volunteers are simply looking for other jazz fans with whom to attend local concerts. Others told of long-term friendships, book clubs and vacation groups that formed from pledge drive volunteers.

Events that relate to an individual’s interests really are the best place to meet like-minded people, dating-book author Atwood says, but she warns against attending them with the sole intention of finding that someone special. She recommends that singles looking for partners widen their social circle to meet as many people as possible, and in so doing, increase their opportunities to meet potential mates. “Go there because you want to be there anyway,” Atwood said. “Most couples meet just living life and being involved in life with other people.”

As Richard Gerber knows well. He had volunteered at KCRW for nearly a decade before he met Alison, 43. When the Manhattan Beach couple married nine years ago, KCRW published an announcement in its newsletter. The station did the same when the Gerbers had sons Adam, 8, and Ben, 5. Now, the entire family listens to public radio together.

“Radio is a community, but you don’t meet people who listen to it,” Richard, 56, said. “As a listener, [the pledge drive] happens too frequently, but as a volunteer, it doesn’t happen enough.”