I recently bought an IPhone at my local Verizon Store and since they were out of stock they said they would send it to me. A few days later it arrived in the mail along with this mailer for my old cell phone.
I was pleasantly surprised and immediately wanted to know more about Verizon’s HopeLine® program. In visiting their website I learned that the program began in 2001 and since that time they have collected 8 million phones. They have distributed 106,000 phones with 319 million minutes of free wireless service to victims of domestic violence. Other phones have been refurbished and sold for reuse generating income for the program. They provide domestic violence organizations and local government and law enforcement agencies donated phones for use with domestic violence clients.
I also found it interesting to know that if donated phones are not useable they are recycled in an environmentally sound way. They are clearly fulfilling their mission of “turning no-longer used cell phones into support for domestic violence victims and survivors.”
I’ll be sending in my old cell phone and encourage others to donate their old cell phones to Verizon.
