Last year, a man named David Scott walked into the GBH Studio at the Boston Public Library, marched up to the microphone, and asked Gov. Maura Healey for help. He had been trying for years to find out what had happened to his brother, John, who died in 1973 while institutionalized in a notorious Massachusetts state hospital for people with disabilities.

Every time he tried to get the records about John — to learn how he lived and, ultimately, how he died — David Scott said, “they slam the door in my face.”

Weeks after this encounter aired live during an “Ask the Governor” segment on Boston Public Radio, David Scott got the records he had been seeking.

To be sure, not every Boston Public Radio show is this dramatic. And that’s just the point: Our “Ask the Governor,” “Ask the Mayor,” and “Ask the Attorney General” segments on BPR allow regular people direct access to their elected leaders, to talk about whatever they want. Sometimes, folks fume about potholes that haven’t been fixed, or ask how to best navigate a property-line dispute. And sometimes, as in the case of David Scott, the answers can begin to provide closure to a generation of a family’s pain.

This is what public media can do — and more. In that same studio, free and open to all, you can enjoy live jazz or classical music, hear poets share their work, or join science enthusiasts for NOVA trivia night.

Equally inspiring is the work that happens every day at GBH headquarters in Brighton, where we collaborate with educators and experts to create primetime programs for PBS KIDS, including Arthur, Molly of Denali, and Work It Out Wombats! For the more than 50 percent of the nation’s children who don’t have access to pre-K education, these shows help give them a head start and a hand up. This, too, is public media.

I don’t want to imagine a world, a country, or a community without it — or GBH, which is the largest producer of content for PBS, reaching people from cradle to cane across our state, in every corner of America, and around the globe.

But all of this is at risk with the threatened elimination of federal funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which makes grants to PBS and hundreds of stations like ours.

GBH has been a Massachusetts institution for nearly 75 years. We were the original producer of The French Chef with Julia Child and This Old House, and we’re still making ANTIQUES ROADSHOW, MASTERPIECE, NOVA, FRONTLINE, and AMERICAN EXPERIENCE.

Our work is both national and local, and we create programs that no one else does, whether that’s streaming the Boston Symphony Orchestra on CRB Classical 99.5 , making a podcast about The Big Dig for GBH News, bringing the Ulysses Quartet into Boston Public Schools , producing global news on The World , or sharing on YouTube FRONTLINE’s Academy Award-winning documentary 20 Days in Mariupol , a harrowing story of Russia’s attack on Ukraine that, sadly, is as timely as ever.

GBH is the most trusted media organization in this market. We provide news and information; events and forums statewide where people can learn, understand, and gain different perspectives; music and cultural programming; and important public safety communications that air during natural disasters.

Our stories and resources reach about 28 million people every week from our home base here in Boston, where we employ more than 650 people. We also connect the Commonwealth from the Berkshires to Oak Bluffs: GBH News collaborates with our sister stations, New England Public Media in Springfield, and CAI, the Cape and Islands Radio.

But the path forward looks rocky. At GBH, about 8 percent of our annual revenue comes from CPB. That might not sound like much, but the public media system is interconnected: Federal defunding of CPB would weaken the entire structure, imperiling PBS and hundreds of stations nationwide that carry our programs, including our own station here in Boston.

The current annual federal appropriation to CPB is $535 million annually. That’s about $1.60 per American, per year. To my way of thinking, that’s a heck of a bargain for a system that, for the last 50 years, has reached essentially everyone in the country with stories that can make a difference — and help make the world a better place. Sometimes the stories are global, such as our boots-on-the-ground investigation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Sometimes, they can change one person’s life — like David Scott’s quest to find out what happened to his big brother.

Public media is for, by, and about everyone. It belongs to all of us. Let’s fight for it. Thank you for your help.

GBH belongs to you. Learn three ways you can help #protectmypublicmedia