Put yourself here for a minute:You have finally gotten up the courage to leave your abusive spouse, and you're staying with a friend until you can find a job and a place of your own. As you fill out your first job application, you realize you can't remember your friend's phone number, and you have no phone of your own. Your hope of finding a job fades fast.
Or here:
You've fled your home in fear for your life, and you're in your car wondering what to do next. Because your spouse has controlled virtually every aspect of your life, you do not carry a cell phone. The only pay phone you find doesn't work, and as you drive around in circles, you begin to wonder if you've done the right thing. Your hope of finding a safe place to land fades fast.
Restoring hope is the idea behind Verizon's HopeLine® program, which collects and refurbishes cell phones, then turns them over to law enforcement agencies and organizations that help victims of domestic violence. The phones include 3,000 minutes of wireless service, and they can literally be a life-line for a woman trapped in a violent relationship. Phones that can't be refurbished are disposed of in an environmentally sound way.
Since its inception, Verizon's HopeLine® program has distributed 90,000 phones, with 300 million minutes of service used by victims of domestic violence. The program also awards cash grants to domestic violence agencies, more than $7.9 million so far. At the end of October, which is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, Verizon will donate $25,000 to local agencies.
I know enough about domestic violence to know that every day, women in Michigan find themselves in dangerous situations. Every day, women in Michigan need to reach out for help. Those of us who are able to pick up a new phone when our contracts expire - or just because we want the latest and the greatest - can help them with a simple, cost-free donation. Verizon even provides a postage-paid shipping label.
1 comment:
This is awesome. I am a past victim of domestic abuse and I recently helped to rescue my sister. I wish I would have known about this before. My sister could have benefited from one of these phones. I run a girls group at a school and I am going to have them collect used phones as a community service project to donate to this program for Verizon. I will spread the word about the good they are doing. Thank you for sharing this!!
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