Domestic violence prevention groups benefit from phone recycling program
Comet staff report

Throughout 2006, wireless customers in Indiana donated 25,325 no-longer-used wireless phones to Verizon Wireless' HopeLine® phone recycling program that supports domestic violence prevention and awareness programs nationwide. As result of these donations, which are up 50 percent from 2005, more than $300,000 in cash grants as well as phones and wireless service were given by the company to shelters and other organizations in Indiana working to support victims of domestic violence.

Verizon Wireless customers throughout the country donated 910,000 no-longer-used wireless phones to HopeLine in 2006, resulting in donations of nearly $1.3 million in cash grants and more than 16,000 HopeLine phones with airtime and other features to domestic violence organizations and shelters.

Since October 2001, when Verizon Wireless launched its national recycling program, HopeLine has collected more than 3.5 million phones. The program has disposed of more than 800,000 phones in an environmentally sound way and refurbished the remaining phones for resale and reuse. Over the last five years, Verizon Wireless also has distributed more than $10 million in financial grants, phones and services and nearly 40,000 phones to domestic violence prevention and awareness programs throughout the country.

No-longer-used phones are collected in more than 2,200 Verizon Wireless Communications Stores throughout the country. For more information on Verizon Wireless' HopeLine program and on how to donate a wireless phone, visit www.verizonwireless.com/hop eline.