Day 364: Supporting Hopeline from Verizon

Paul here. Now that we are almost at the end of our Challenge, you would think we have covered just about every cause there is to support.  Well, the sad truth is that there are so many worthy causes that need help, we have discovered that one can never run out of places to turn to offer service or support.  Today, we learned about Verizon's Hopeline program, a campaign which seeks the donation of old phones (of course we have those with everyone constantly upgrading!) to be placed in a collection bin in their stores, that will be recycled to support overcoming domestic violence.  Hopeline strives to both raise awareness of domestic violence and prevent this horrific problem by giving these old phones to at-risk families who might just be a phone call away form safety. It's easy to dislike a large corporation like Verizon, especially when trying to navigate through endless phone prompts to try to reach a human who might actually care about your problem.  However, I give them a lot of credit for trying to address the tragic problems of domestic violence.


HopeLine Statistics as seen on the Verizon website:
Since HopeLine from Verizon’s national cell phone recycling and re-use program was launched
in 2001, Verizon Wireless has:
 Collected more than 8 million phones.
 Awarded more than $10 million in cash grants to domestic violence agencies and
organizations throughout the country.
 Distributed more than 106,000 phones with more than 319 million minutes of free
wireless service to be used by victims of domestic violence.

We are blessed to have been raised in loving, nurturing homes, and it's safe to say that the most violent act in our family is the trapping of a mouse!  Unfortunately many people live in daily fear of physical and emotional abuse.  The road out of this environment is not always clear or easy, but the more education provided by Hopeline and others can give these victims a chance to take control of their lives.  Keeping in mind how lucky we are, and how Verizon is helping these victims, it makes waiting on hold for an agent a bit easier to tolerate.

As my last entry, I want to say how proud I am of all us who made this Service Challenge possible.  It made us think creatively of how we can provide service to those less fortunate.   While many people may have benefited from our efforts, I believe it also helped make us better individuals as well.  If it's true that "the more you give the more you get", then we received a tremendous amount from this Challenge.
I think Marie would be proud of us too.