Kansas City's Hope House Receives Grant To Fund Services For Victims Of Domestic Violence

LEE'S SUMMIT, MO — As part of the company’s national HopeLine® program, Verizon Wireless announced today that it has donated $5,000 to Hope House through its sponsorship of the shelter’s annual black-tie fundraising event Hope & All That Jazz, on Saturday, August 18 in the Muehlebach wing of the Kansas City Marriott Downtown.  Hope House, based in Jackson County and operating out of secure locations in Lee’s Summit and Independence, works to break the cycle of domestic violence by providing safe refuge and supportive services that educate and empower women and children in the Kansas City metro area.

“We are pleased to support the work of Hope House,” said Brendan Fallis, president – Kansas/Missouri region, Verizon Wireless.  “Their efforts to end domestic violence in the Kansas City area have made a tremendous difference in the lives of families dealing with domestic abuse and have raised community awareness of the need for prevention and intervention programs.”

When Hope House opened its first shelter in Independence in 1983, it was able to house 15 women and children.  Today, through its locations in Lee’s Summit and Independence, the shelter can house up to 122 women and children at a time, providing services to form a safety net of prevention, education and support for more than 10,000 victims of domestic violence every year.  In addition to a shelter, each location features an early childhood center, therapy space, administration offices and community training facilities.  Women and their children are offered an array of supportive services that include outreach therapy, a court and legal program, a safe visitation center, hospital-based advocacy, on-call women’s advocates who work with area police departments, as well as a 24-hour hotline for crisis intervention.

HopeLine from Verizon puts the nation’s most reliable wireless network to work in the community by turning no-longer-used wireless phones into support for victims and survivors of domestic violence.  Proceeds from the HopeLine program are used to provide wireless phones and airtime to victims of domestic violence and cash grants to local shelters and non-profit organizations that focus on domestic violence prevention.  Since the launch of the HopeLine phone recycling program in 2001, this initiative has collected more than 7 million phones, given out more than $7.9 million in cash grants and distributed more than 90,000 phones with more than 300 million minutes of free wireless service.

For more information about HopeLine from Verizon visit www.verizonwireless.com/hopeline.  If you or someone you know is a domestic violence victim, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 to talk to a counselor.  All calls to the National Domestic Violence Hotline are confidential.

About Verizon Wireless
Verizon Wireless operates the nation’s largest 4G LTE network and largest, most reliable 3G network.  The company serves 94.2 million retail customers, including 88.8 million retail postpaid customers.  Headquartered in Basking Ridge, N.J., with 78,000 employees nationwide, Verizon Wireless is a joint venture of Verizon Communications (NYSE, NASDAQ: VZ) and Vodafone (LSE, NASDAQ: VOD).  For more information, visit www.verizonwireless.com.  To preview and request broadcast-quality video footage and high-resolution stills of Verizon Wireless operations, log on to the Verizon Wireless Multimedia Library at www.verizonwireless.com/multimedia. 

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