Pay it Forward for The Saints

The Merry Beggars is the entertainment division of Relevant Radio. Our mission is to heal the culture by inspiring and encouraging families. The Merry Beggars has produced shows like A Christmas Carol and On the Night Train, reached #3 on Apple Fiction Podcasts and been downloaded over 1 million times.

Peter Atkinson founded The Merry Beggars while training as an actor at Columbia University’s graduate school (and working as a janitor on the side). He has been published in First Things, studied Classics at Ave Maria University, walked across the country for the Pro-Life cause, and starred Off-Broadway in New York City.

Producing high-quality productions is expensive. If we want to impact the world, these stories need to be good. For the past 8 months we’ve been building an award-winning team from productions like The Chosen, Blacklist, Law and Order, and many others. This team is capable of telling stories that will bring the faith alive for hundreds of thousands of families. By investing in high-quality storytelling, we’re creating stories that will be enjoyed for decades to come.

We love film and TV! But there’s something special about audio.

For less than one tenth of the cost of one independent film, we will be able to produce over 200 episodes of The Saints. We can tell the stories of Josephine Bakhita, Isaac Jogues, John Bosco, Pier Giorgio Frassati, Francis of Assisi, Benedict of Nursia, Joan of Arc, Patrick of Ireland, and many more for less than the cost of one film!

This has a large impact on our audience. Families will tune in every weekday to have the witnesses of the faith brought into their homes. By forming this habit, families will strengthen their faith and make it a daily part of their lives.

Families have also expressed gratitude for our shows being audio instead of visual. In an internet-soaked culture, parents are grateful that their children can be entertained in a way that nurtures their imaginations and characters. Instead of staring at a screen, they can experience these stories with family members, while playing board games, going to bed, on commutes, etc.

More people are listening to audio than ever before in human history. That creates an opportunity to impact the culture in a massive way.