To: Peter A. Frid, President & CEO of NHPBS, and to whomever else it may concern,
You don’t know me. But I know PBS.
It was this organization and its member stations—such as yours—that were, in no small part, as responsible for my upbringing as my own mother and father were. My parents both worked long, tiring days when I was a child. It was a rather frequent—and frankly understandable—necessity for them to be working all the time. We’ve always been a middle-class family, always making enough to enjoy what the American dream offered, but never much more. Many days, I’d be left as a young boy with a babysitter or relative. The channel that was almost always on was PBS.
I was raised by the shows that would air on your channels. I grew up watching Barney, Sesame Street, Reading Rainbow, and Mr. Rogers on PBS Kids. Each show taught me valuable lessons that, perhaps at the time, I had no idea I was learning—but now, as an adult, I realize that entertainment had, in fact, instilled in me universally human ideals and values.
When I learned of the current administration’s efforts to eliminate federal funding of your parent organization, it became evident that this indescribable hostility may yet extend deeper—to its members like yourselves.
I found it, therefore, important to say the following, so that those who may yet feel all their work has been for naught will know that they have left an eternal and unyielding legacy that will echo for generations:
The journey upon which you have embarked is a journey to spread the golden light of learning, to banish the cold dark of ignorance, to teach compassion as a bulwark against hate and cruelty, to instill honesty and responsibility, and to bring plurality under the fraternity of humankind. Your journey is among the greatest and most noble of endeavors. Try as they might, the ignorant, jingoistic, and cruel—those who wish to tear away your heart and soul—will fail so long as your mission remains just and true. The hearts, minds, and unspoken prayers from tens of thousands of children—and many millions more, both past and present, across the nation—are with you. As are mine.
Peace and blessings be upon you all,
Christopher S., A PBS Kid
Hampton, NH
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