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D.C.’s long-running Bluegrass Country station will continue to hit the airwaves after threats of being shut down.

WAMU is transferring the station over to the Bluegrass Country Foundation, an organization that emerged shortly after WAMU announced in July that it planned to sell the station, lest it shutter for good.

“We all had the same desire which was to have the WAMU Bluegrass legacy continue,” said WAMU General Manager JJ Yore, in a release. “With a mutual goal in mind, we worked quickly and collaboratively so there would be no loss of service for our bluegrass community.”

The foundation is slated to begin operating the station on February 6. Members have raised enough money to fund it for the next six months, the foundation’s president Jeff Ludin said in a statement, adding that he’s “cautiously confident” that the group will earn more from underwriting and donations to keep it going.

Foundation board member Randy Barrett told DCist in September that the group had until October 17 to raise $200,000 and submit a proposal to WAMU. Everything needed to be solidified by the end of last year, but WAMU later gave the foundation an extension.

In the immediate future, Ludin said that the foundation will update programming systems to cut costs. Then, members will announce “a new sustaining membership program designed to create substantial value for the members, while ensuring the financial viability of Bluegrass Country radio.”

WAMU’s bluegrass offerings have been available for nearly 50 years. What began as a half hour show has grown into a 24-hour music station at 105.5 FM. It’s also streamed online.

But studies recently commissioned by WAMU showed that listeners flock to the public radio station for its news value, not so much for the bluegrass.

Barrett, who is also president of the DC Bluegrass Union, said that the foundation’s business plan also includes integrating jam grass, acoustic, Americana, and folk music because “one of the challenges as far as programming is to create programming that’s attractive to younger people.”

DJ Katy Daley, Bill Foster, and others are leaving the station, Bluegrass Today reports. However, some familiar voices such as Gary Henderson, Dick Spottswood, Lee Michael Demsey, Lisa Kay Howard, and Al Steiner are sticking around, according to the release.

“We are proud to become the stewards of such an important resource and we look forward to bringing bluegrass and related roots music to a new generation of listeners,” Ludin said.