Founder’s Day Boot Drive returns to give back to the community

BECKLEY, WV (WVNS) – 59News will be celebrating Founder’s Day this Friday, June 14, 2024, with our annual boot drive.

Founder’s Day is a birthday celebration for our parent company, Nexstar, where different stations will be doing community service work in their areas.

Our boot drive tradition began back in 2016 when Southern West Virginia was devastated by substantial flooding.

Our station is teaming up with United Way to give back to local charities and people in need.

Executive Director of United Way of SWV , Trena Dacal, said, “It was incredibly impactful during the flood of 2016. Any funds that came in went directly out to those families who were impacted, and now it works the same way. United Way funds stay in the community that they are raised and so all those funds that are raised in Greenbrier County, Beaver, and in Princeton stay locally to support local food pantries.”

Because of the impact the boot drive had on the community in 2016, we continue to hold boot drives every year.

Although we haven’t seen conditions as severe as those in 2016, Dacal told 59News why it is important that we continue this Founder’s Day Tradition. “We have seen, with inflation, a great need for families to have a little bit of help to help stretch their budgets at the end of the month. We’ve seen increased use of our food pantries, and we’ve seen that food pantries are having a bigger struggle as well, purchasing the food that they stock, because they’re seeing the effects of inflation also. So, it’s incredibly important that we have community partners that work with us to help support the local needs of our community.”

Aside from Founder’s Day, United Way provides year-round assistance to other local organizations.

You can come check us out and donate to the cause in Beaver, Princeton, or Lewisburg on Friday, June 14th.

Nexstar is celebrating its 28th anniversary of its founding on June 17.

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