Nexstar's Three Decades of Caring
Nexstar Employees Dedicate 17,000 Hours to Community Service, Marking 30th Founder's Day
Key Points
Nexstar said it launched Founder’s Day of Caring in 1996—the same year the company was founded.
In Akron, FOX 8 reported the city’s crime dashboard showed “58 shooting victims through May,” “20 more than this time last year,” alongside “more than 700 firearms related calls for service,” prompting an effort to address violence through intervention before it occurs.
At Second Harvest Food Bank of Northeast Tennessee, CEO Rhonda Chafin described the food bank as “the hub,” with partner pantries and soup kitchens as “one of our spokes,” and outlined programs including a summer feeding program, a mobile food pantry, a community kitchen serving after-school meals, and a backpack program for weekend take-home food.
News Channel 11 said Nexstar encourages volunteerism by paying employees “up to four hours to donate their time,” and that the opportunity is employee-led.
KFOR reported its employees selected charities beyond food assistance—specifically Feed the Children and the Angels Foster Care Network—for their Founder’s Day of Caring volunteer work.
Nexstar Media Group marked the 30th anniversary of its Founder's Day of Caring in June 2025, mobilizing about 5,000 employees who logged more than 17,000 volunteer hours across more than 310 charitable organizations nationwide Nexstar Media Group. The program, which the company launched in 1996 the same year it was founded, gave workers up to four paid hours to serve local causes of their own choosing News Channel 11.
This year's effort reached from food banks in Tennessee and Alabama to violence prevention in Akron, Ohio, and foster care networks in Oklahoma — a snapshot of how 30 years of structured corporate volunteering has grown into a nationwide operation tied to urgent local needs.
Summer Hunger Drives Food Bank Volunteer Push
The biggest focus of this year's Founder's Day was summer food insecurity. When school ends, children lose access to free and reduced-price lunches — and local food banks feel it immediately. At Second Harvest Food Bank of Northeast Tennessee, CEO Rhonda Chafin called summer "truly the hungriest time of the year" News Channel 11. Her region serves more than 90,000 people, with distributions up roughly 10% over the prior year.
Chafin described her food bank as "the hub," with local pantries and soup kitchens as "one of our spokes" News Channel 11. Programs include a summer feeding program, a mobile food pantry, a community kitchen that serves after-school meals, and a backpack program that sends food home with kids for the weekend. Nexstar volunteers provided the labor muscle needed to keep that distribution running at scale.
Akron Volunteers Target Violence Before It Starts
In Akron, Ohio, FOX 8 tied its Founder's Day work directly to a documented rise in gun violence. The city's crime dashboard showed 58 shooting victims through May 2025 — 20 more than the same point in 2024 — alongside more than 700 firearms-related calls for service FOX 8. Rather than a traditional cleanup or landscaping project, station employees focused on intervention efforts aimed at stopping violence before it occurs.
The Akron effort reflects a broader shift in how some Nexstar stations are choosing to spend their volunteer hours. Instead of beautification work, local teams are directing their time toward prevention — a sign that employee-led charity selection is steering resources toward the sharpest community needs.
Employees Pick Their Own Causes, From Foster Care to Food
One of the program's defining features is that employees choose where to serve. In Oklahoma City, KFOR employees selected Feed the Children and the Angels Foster Care Network — going beyond food assistance entirely KFOR. In Western Colorado, station staff spent their hours supporting a local botanical garden Western Slope Now. This local, employee-led model means the 310-plus organizations served reflect genuine community ties, not a single corporate directive.
News Channel 11 noted that Nexstar encourages participation by paying employees "up to four hours to donate their time" News Channel 11. That structure matters. Converting good intentions into logged, paid service hours turns a one-day event into measurable impact — roughly 17,000 hours that, at the 2025 Independent Sector volunteer value of $33.49 per hour, represents about $570,000 in donated labor.
30 Years of Local Service, Built Into Company DNA
Nexstar founder Perry Sook launched the program in June 1996 — the same month the company was born with the acquisition of WYOU-TV in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Sook has long argued that Nexstar's advantage is that its employees "live and work in the communities in which they serve," making local partnerships faster and more responsive than national organizations Nexstar Media Group.
To mark the 30th anniversary, Nexstar also launched a 30 Days of Giving initiative, offering $5,000 grants to nonprofits nominated by employees Western Slope Now. Together, the volunteer hours and the grant program frame a company that built its identity around local media trying to make that identity mean something beyond the broadcast signal.
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