Verizon Wireless urges customers to recycle their old phones to give back to Project Against Violent Encounters (PAVE), a domestic violence agency in Bennington.
PAVE has received an annual grant from Verizon’s HopeLine recycling program since 2009 to provide prepaid cell phones to women and individuals who struggle after being victimized.
Every six months, PAVE receives about 20 refurbished phones from Verizon with 3,000 prepaid minutes and 9,000 text messages each.
The phones are often given to victims who have come out of an abusive situation and may still be struggling. “Most of the phones that we give out are given to those whose phone has been taken, broken by an abuser, left behind or to individuals can’t pay for a phone,” said volunteer PAVE coordinator, Nancy Feinberg.
In addition to the refurbished, free-service phones, Verizon allots a $1,000 annual cash grant for kids who may have themselves been victims or harmed indirectly from an abusive situation.
Since 2001, Verizon has collected more than 10.8 million phones and recycled more than 2.4 million phones in an environmentally-sound way as part of its initiative called HopeLine: to provide phones to domestic violence victims and to help keep electronic waste out of landfills.
HopeLine works with 98 domestic violence agencies throughout New England. Equinox in Albany and Domestic Violence and Rape Crisis Services of Saratoga County also participate in the HopeLine program.
HopeLine scrubs all phones as a part of the recycling or refurbishing processes. This process ensures that no data from old users is left open for misuse.