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Biography

Don Fass is an award-winning journalist, broadcaster and online editor. He is the host of the popular REACHING UP music and interview program heard on satellite networks,shortwave and FM radio across the U.S, Canada, Mexico, Caribbean and in 200 other countries, by millions of listeners each week and he is director of Celebrate Radio network.. His listeners write that the program is ’unlike anything else on the air,’ its music and interviews ‘unique and uplifting’and that Don’s ‘heart shines through each week.

Don is also the founder of Streetcats Foundation for Youth and its One Heart for Kids and National Childrens Coalition initiatives and of Teen-Anon 12-Step Recovery for youth.

As a journalist, Don’s career goes back to age 17, when he was the youngest reporter ever credentialed to cover the White House, State Department, United Nations and NASA’s Mercury, Gemini and Apollo space programs and did numerous entertainment interviews for magazines, radio and newspapers and UPI Audio News.

He was the co-founder of American Radio News, one of the first two radio-only audio news services, an editor at ABC Radio Networks, UPI Audio, Scholastic Magazines, Prodigy Online and AOL.

A New York radio news director at 19, he is also one of two broadcasters credited with first establishing pop/rock music on FM. He spent years as an investigator reporter for major outlets.

Don has covered events and personalities from the Kennedys to Apollo 11, The Beatles to the U.N. Security Council, the Oscars and Grammys to Live-Aid, from 22 countries and over 300 major market radio stations

In 1994, he also created SC Metro Online, as the Internet began. It now has more than 40 award-winning web sites, including Youth and Children Net, Entertainment Network News, Get-It Online, The Web Zones, Citys Central, Bizday, SF Today, Get2Music, Cool-Email, City Women and many others.

His journalism career has been featured in Broadcasting Magazine, Variety, The New York Times, on Voice of America and the CBS Radio Network. and his youth and social justice work in the Los Angeles Times, Associated Press, San Francisco Chronicle, NY Post, Sing Tao Daily, Oakland Tribune and numerous overseas newspapers.

Don embarked on a second, parallel career in the 1970's, helping people, particularly youth through sensitivity training, empowerment and 12-step growth groups.

Each group he founded is nationally known and serves thousands of parents, kids and teens off the web and over 2 million more through its youthchildren.net (formerly child.net), kidsurfer.org, teensurfer.com and teen-anon.com websites as well as the only national resource sites for Asian-American, Latino and African-American youth and a Sixties history and resource site used by thousands of high school and college teachers.

Don trained with Jack Canfield (author of the best-selling Chicken Soup books), Bernard Gunther, Will Schutz and other group leaders from Esalen Institute and received substance abuse counsel training at the New School for Social Research in New York, UC-Berkeley, Western Addictions Institute and UC-San Diego, La Jolla.

He has lectured at Rutgers University, Queens College, Xavier University, New York University and conducted workshops for the National Association of Social Workers, Association for Humanistic Psychology, Generation One, Anthos and numerous growth centers and been a group leader over 15-years for Al-Anon, Nar-Anon, Cocanon and a counselor at Thunder Road Rehab and other youth centers.

He has appeared as a guest on majorand radio programs with Barbara Walters, Phil Donahue, Dr. Joyce Brothers, Barry Farber, Hugh Downs and Tom Snyder and been written about in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times Sunday Magazine, San Francisco Chronicle, Associated Press, Fox Health Network, Fox News, Parade Magazine, ANG Newspapers (Oakland Tribune, Fremont Argus, others), Philadelphia Inquirer and on numerous talk radio shows, KABC-TV New York, Midday-Live, Good Morning N.Y. and many more!

He is considered a prime human relations resource, particularly in the areas of youth resources and behavior, about street kids and runaways and substance abuse.

His videos and podcasts are seen all over the internet including You Tube, he has begun a reachingup blog at xanga.com, tweets at #reachingup and has just begun his first book, On the Road to the Divine, a collection of interviews, anecdotes and commentaries.

Don was nominated to Who’s Who in America for 1999-2000.