With many social service organizations burdened by budget cuts, the beneficiaries of these services shouldn’t have to suffer.
For this reason, and as a part of the inauguration of their new retail store in Jamaica, Verizon Wireless presented Safe Horizon, the largest provider of domestic violence related services in New York City, with a check for $5,000.
“Funds are particularly important any time, but even more so this year considering the economic climate,” said Joanna Colangelo, corporate development manager for Safe Horizon. “Verizon has been a long-time partner of Safe Horizon.”
Safe Horizon operates programs in Queens that offer shelter and assistance to abused women, intervention programs, services for minors and orientation for high-risk families.
According to Colangelo, Safe Horizon has introduced a program called SafeWork within the offices of Verizon, that educates employees and managers on the impact of domestic violence in the workplace. Statistics show that one in every four woman is a victim of domestic violence and American corporations annually lose about $6 billion, as a result of medical services and low productivity.
“Through SafeWork we’ve trained their human resources managers across the country to recognize the signs of domestic violence and where to refer those cases,” said Colangelo. “As a company, they have taken a huge stance in battling domestic violence.”
A tool in the Verizon Wireless arsenal in the battle has been HopeLine, a phone-recycling program collects and donates wireless phones and equipment to assist victims of domestic violence.
Every Verizon Wireless store, including the new one at 161-21 Jamaica Avenue, has collection bins, so that members of the public can donate and participate in the efforts. In 2009, roughly 1.1 million phones were donated via HopeLine. These donations allowed HopeLine to distribute approximately 23,000 telephones with 69 million fee minutes of service to about 600 shelters across the country. It also permitted $1.6 million in subsidy cash donations to awareness and domestic violence prevention programs.
Verizon Wireless’ HopeLine accepts any cellular phone, no matter the provider or manufacturer.
