Northern Michigan Domestic Violence Survivors Benefit From Verizon Wireless Grant

TRAVERSE CITY, MI — Domestic violence survivors and their children in northern Michigan will benefit from a $10,000 donation made by Verizon Wireless to the Women's Resource Center of Northern Michigan, a domestic violence organization serving Otsego, Emmet, Cheboygan, Antrim and Charlevoix counties.

The grant will help fund reprinting a domestic violence handbook, a resource created by the Women's Resource Center of Northern Michigan in 1996. The handbook is used to educate survivors and the general public and help them identify circumstances that can lead to domestic violence. Funds from this grant will also support distribution of domestic violence prevention materials for use at local schools, including a program that promotes the importance of teaching athletes how to eliminate disrespectful norms toward women and girls.

The Women's Resource Center of Northern Michigan has been providing safe shelter and supportive services to survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault since 1977. Services include shelter, crisis counseling and legal, medical, financial and personal advocacy.

"Verizon Wireless is a valued community partner," said Jan Mancinelli, executive director of the Women's Resource Center of Northern Michigan. "The company understands that combating domestic violence requires support from business partners and community leaders. This grant will help us sustain programs which are critical to our efforts to educate the community, raise awareness of the issue and prevent domestic violence."

In 2009, the Women's Resource Center of Northern Michigan was awarded a $5,000 grant from Verizon Wireless. These funds were used to maintain the agency's Domestic Abuse and Rape and Sexual Assault programs, which provide emergency shelter, 24-hour crisis response, crisis and ongoing counseling services, access to a 24-hour crisis and information hotline, and a number of supportive and advocacy services.

"Verizon Wireless understands that access to safe shelter can be a matter of life or death," said Dave Rapson, district manager-retail sales, Verizon Wireless Communications Stores in northern Michigan. "Our company is committed to the communities where our customers and employees live and work and is dedicated to making a difference in the lives of domestic violence and sexual assault survivors in Gaylord, Petoskey and across northern Michigan."

The $10,000 gift was made possible by the HopeLine® from Verizon program, which converts no-longer-used wireless phones into support for survivors of domestic violence.

Since HopeLine's national phone recycling and reuse program was launched in 2001, Verizon Wireless has collected more than 7 million phones, distributed more than 90,000 phones with the equivalent of more than 300 million minutes of free wireless service to be used by domestic violence survivors, and awarded more than $7.9 million in cash grants to domestic violence agencies and organizations throughout the country.

In Michigan last year, Verizon Wireless and the Verizon Foundation donated more than $63,000 in cash grants as well as phones and airtimes to local domestic violence agencies and shelters.

HopeLine wireless phone donations are accepted at all Verizon Wireless Communications Stores across the nation, including the locations at 1393 W. Main Street in Gaylord and 2160 Anderson Road in Petoskey. Phones given to the HopeLine program are refurbished and resold for reuse or disposed of in an environmentally sound manner.

For more information on the HopeLine program, visit www.verizonwireless.com/hopeline.

About Verizon Wireless in Michigan
In Michigan, Verizon Wireless has more than 2,100 employees and 65 company-owned retail locations in more than 40 cities, including Allen Park, Alpena, Alpine Twp., Ann Arbor, Auburn Hills, Battle Creek, Bay City, Brighton, Burton, Canton, Clinton Twp., Dearborn, Detroit, East Lansing, Farmington Hills, Fenton, Flint, Fort Gratiot, Gaylord, Grand Rapids, Grandville, Highland Park, Holland, Jackson, Kentwood, Lake Orion, Lansing, Livonia, Midland, Monroe, Muskegon, Northville, Novi, Okemos, Petoskey, Pontiac, Portage, Rochester Hills, Royal Oak, Saginaw, St. Clair Shores, St. Joseph, Southfield, Taylor, Traverse City, Troy, Utica, Warren and Westland.

About Verizon Wireless
Verizon Wireless operates the nation's most reliable and largest wireless voice and 3G data network, serving more than 92 million customers. Headquartered in Basking Ridge, N.J., with 79,000 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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