Photo provided by Angela Jackson Brittany Gray of QMIX will be taking love song requests to benefit Love Chapel today as part of a Valentine’s Day fundraiser.
An idea that grew out of Jim Gillespie’s heart for the less fortunate has become a lovey-dovey staple this time of year.
So it is with the 24th Annual Love Songs For Love Chapel fundraiser unfolding from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. today on QMIX Radion at 107.3 FM in Columbus.
The simple idea: You go to qmix.com and click on “Love Songs For Love Chapel, select a tune for a donation of $10 per song, and go from there. QMIX staff, which throws out the normal playlist on this day, will make sure your dutiful dedication makes it on the air, providing it’s clean and appropriate.
Gillespie’s initial dedication years ago was to he and wife Suellen’s three children: Kermit the Frog’s “Rainbow Connection.”
“It was a bit of a shock and a surprise that this caught on so well,” said Gillespie, who was a Love Chapel food pantry board member in 1999 when he pitched the idea. “I don’t want to quite say I was flying by the seat of my pants, but … .”
Last year’s event raised $3,850. This year’s goal is $5,000, according to Kelly Daugherty, Love Chapel’s executive director.
The first couple of such fundraisers created funds for the Christian ministry’s new-at-the-time Buildings and Grounds Committee. Gillespie mentioned that the small Love Chapel building at 311 Center St. — the only structure that existed for the outreach back then — didn’t even have working staff restrooms at the time.
Such an upgrade “was a significant period of transition for Ecumenical Assembly operations,” as Gillespie put it. “I think it helped them turn a corner.”
Gillespie, a member of Columbus’ First United Methodist Church, was inspired by Jerry Lewis’ Labor Day Telethon for Muscular Dystrophy when he first thought of the Love Songs effort. He brought the idea to Keith Reising of QMIX at the time.
“He kind of lit up,” Gillespie said.
Brittany Gray, operations manager for Reising Radio Partners, has mentioned that female friends are a big part of the event, sending dedications back and forth to one another of songs remembered from bittersweet high school or college days.
“So it really can be any kind of dedication people want to make that day,” Gray said.
The fundraiser’s creator will once again dedicate “Rainbow Connection” to the long-grown kids today. And he will dedicate Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” to Suellen, as he always does.
“I always try to make sure she’s close to the radio in the afternoon,” he said.
What does Gillespie hope for the future of Love Songs For Love Chapel?
“It has been so amazing,” Gillespie said of the project. “So, ideally, I would like to see the same kind of response that it has gotten through the years.
“And, for me, the success of it is not in just the fundraising. It’s the public relations aspect (for Love Chapel) as well.”
