NASHUA – Right-wing Massachusetts-based talk show host Dianna Ploss, whose racist, live-streamed rants belittling a group of Nashua landscapers for daring to speak Spanish to each other prompted WSMN to sever all ties with her on Monday, will soon be helping to feed hundreds of low-income children of all races and ethnic backgrounds – without even knowing it.

Ploss, a 55-year-old North Shore resident who founded MA 4 Trump, a statewide movement to reelect the president, sullied local airwaves with her over-the-top diatribes against people of color during much of last Friday’s show on the local station.

WSMN owners swiftly cut ties with Ploss, who they said was not an employee of the station, but one several clients who buy air time to host their shows.

Now, thanks to the efforts of numerous Facebook users who responded to a post by Hudson resident Jeff Rutstein suggesting a GoFundMe account be set up in order that “something positive” comes out of Ploss’s hateful, divisive rhetoric, the Feed the Kids program will soon be receiving a donation of at least $1,000 to help beef up its coffers.

“I’m watching this, thinking how can someone have so much anger,” Rutstein said Wednesday. “I don’t care who you support or don’t support (politically), nobody deserves to be treated like that.”

A screenshot shows Dianna Ploss on the air last Friday, her last day with WSMN. Her comments on the show prompted the creation of a GoFundMe account, the proceeds of which will benefit the local Feed the Children program.

Rutstein referred to Ploss’s ambush of the landscapers, employees of Morin’s Landscaping who were working on a project to spruce up the expanded-dining area in front of Surf restaurant when Ploss approached, cameras rolling.

“This is America … speak English!” Ploss shrieks at some of the crew members, evidently after overhearing them communicating in Spanish as they worked, setting up potted trees and encircling them with granite stone blocks in the expanded-dining area.

Ploss is heard asking if any of the workers are “illegals,” then blurts out, “speak English … English.”

She also assumed, incorrectly, that Nashua and state taxpayers are paying for the project. When someone told her it’s not a city or state funded project, she remained undeterred.

The video, and others, went viral over the weekend. Residents from Nashua and well beyond the area expressed outrage on social media. The comments most favorable to Ploss indicated that while they may agree with many of her points, she didn’t come across well in expressing them.

Telegraph photo by DEAN SHALHOUP Crews from Morin's Landscaping, some of whom were assailed on Friday by a right-wing radio host for speaking Spanish rather than English, work along Main Street this week.

Rutstein, the Hudson resident, said he initially wanted to donate the GoFundMe proceeds to Morin’s Landscaping, but the company suggested he instead “choose a charity” to help out, he said.

When he posted a message to that effect, the suggestions included Soel Sistas, out of which Nashua resident Kendra Smith began the Feed the Kids program as a way to make sure schoolchildren in the free or reduced school lunch program still got fed after schools closed due to COVID-19.

Smith, who also operates a catering and food-prep business, said she was “absolutely humbled” when Facebook users chose Soel Sistas as the beneficiary of the GoFundMe donation.

A self-proclaimed “lunch lady” at Nashua High School South for five years, Smith said she has also filled in as the cook at different city schools and cooked for Fairgrounds Elementary School’s summer program.

The donation came at the ideal time, Smith said, noting that Feed the Children funds “are a little low right now,” and “we’re down to two days a week.”

A couple of nonprofits have stepped in to help, putting up food bags and non perishables to help supplement the program.

Rutstein said he and others are working on setting a time and place to present the donation to Soel Sista. Anyone wishing to make a donation in the meantime can go to www.gofundme.com/f/nashua-hudson-cares.

Meanwhile, Smith, who is biracial, said she saw Ploss’s video Friday, the day it was recorded, then watched several archived ones.

“It’s just disgusting,” she said, adding she opted to put Ploss’s rants behind her and move on.

What’s particularly gratifying, Smith said, is knowing so many children “of all the colors of the rainbow are going to be eating off of her,” referring to the GoFundMe account that Rutstein would never have founded had it not been for the racist tirades Ploss brought forth on what turned out to be her final show from the WSMN studios.

Dean Shalhoup may be reached at 594-1256 or dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com.

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