“Now is a great time to donate the mobile phones that you have around the house and are not using,” says Cameka Crawford, the multicultural communications and community relations manager for Verizon Wireless. “October is National Domestic Violence Awareness Month, so there is no better time to donate a no-longer-used phone.”
Verizon Wireless has been on an important mission since 2001 when they started their phone recycling and refurbishing program, HopeLine, to empower victims of domestic violence. Essentially the program turns no-longer-used wireless phones into support for the victims. Crawford spearheads the HopeLine program, which since its inception has led to the collection of more than eight million phones and distribution of more than $10 million in grants to local and national organizations that focus on domestic violence prevention and awareness.
One in every four women will experience domestic violence in their lifetime and nearly three out of four Americans personally know someone who has been a victim of domestic violence.
“In partnership with the National Network to End Domestic Violence, we are embarking on an exciting eight-city bus tour across the country where we will be offering [people] an opportunity to share and record on video their stories of how domestic violence has affected them or how they plan to join the cause to end domestic violence in America. It’s called the Journey of Hope and we will take those stories and place them online, where they can be shared and where there will be a list of community resources for people in need of help,” says Crawford. The testimonies will be posted on Facebook® at www.facebook.com/Verizon (under the HopeLine tab) to further the discussion about this community issue.
The tour starts on Oct. 2 in Green Bay, Wis. and will visit Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Dallas.
Those interested in supporting victims of domestic violence can do so by texting “HOPE” to 41010 to make a one-time $10 donation to NNEDV, the largest network of state domestic violence coalitions in the nation. Verizon will waive text messaging fees and 100 percent of each $10 donation will go to NNEDV as a part of the text-to-donate campaign. –yvette caslin
