WRFI Featured “Partners for Change” at all GreenStar Locations – May 2026
Our station thrives through the support of our listeners. You can support WRFI with a token at GreenStar checkout through the month of June.
Local Roots Grow Deep - WRFI Community Radio - as featured on the GreenStar Blog
WRFI is hands-on, homegrown radio. We empower, inform, and connect people and communities in the Finger Lakes and beyond by amplifying local and under-represented perspectives, independent journalism, and diverse music across three regional FM frequencies: 88.1 in Ithaca, 91.9 in Watkins Glen, and 89.7 across the southern Finger Lakes. Like GreenStar Food Co+Op, WRFI was founded by dedicated community members who wanted to galvanize community power, grow social engagement, and enrich our region through creating a truly community-powered local media station.
We’ve been broadcasting daily out of the historic Clinton House in Downtown Ithaca for more than 13 years, and our community roots extend even longer in local memory. Our current cohort includes more than 70 local DJs and show hosts who explore music, myth, social justice, and poetry, and host interviews with dozens of local creatives, musicians, and visiting culture bearers every year. Where else can you turn on the radio and hear your neighbors and community members sharing and showcasing the music and culture they are most passionate about? From Alcance Latino hosted entirely in Spanish by Carlos Gutierrez every Wednesday, to Southern-fried groove grease on the Humming Wires with John on Monday evenings, WRFI music programs defy the confines of genre. Our unifying frequency is that our station is co-created by our community-based DJs, and their musical expertise is as varied and diverse as Tompkins County.
WRFI mornings feature local, regional, and national independent news and public affairs shows, including favorites like Democracy Now and the Capitol Pressroom, local productions like the Human Rights and Social Justice Program and the Made of Clay Report, and shows that explore underrepresented and marginalized issues like Unreserved with Rosanna Deerchild and This Way Out. If you’ve found yourself feeling distanced or frustrated by mainstream news, or you’ve been seeking deeper dives into big topics, we implore you to return to local radio. News media and journalism has been heavily impacted by the shifting political and social tides over recent years. WRFI continues to be a space for independent news that engages with complex politics, and that explores vital issues often left out of mainstream conversations.
You never quite know what you’ll hear when you turn the dial to a WRFI frequency, but you know it will be unexpected and an auditory breath of fresh air. We’re here every day, and are more than happy to join you in your kitchen while you prepare your locally bought and harvested foods into delicious meals, or to come in over the airwaves while you’re in your car rolling through our many hills, or stuck in the stop-and-go of traffic in town.
Find us at 88.1 FM in Ithaca, 91.9 FM if you’re in the Watkins Glen or Montour Falls area, and 89.7 FM for the Southern Finger Lakes, from Hornell to Sayre to Cortland. You can also tune in on most smart speakers, on the Radio ReThink app for iOS or listen to us anywhere that you have internet access at WRFI.org/LISTEN.