Verizon Wireless 2010 Annual Report Download - page 14

Kristin Favale uses an interactive smart board to teach an online poetry lesson from the Verizon
Foundation’s Thinkfinity.org website at the John F. Kennedy Magnet School in Port Chester, N.Y.
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T VERIZON, we use our
technology, financial
resources, employees and
partnerships to help solve
critical social issues. Our
approach is motivated by
our deep commitment to
doing business in a way that contributes to
the prosperity of our shareowners, our
employees and the communities we serve.
Since 2005, the Verizon Foundation has
awarded more than $411 million to nonprofit
organizations, with the majority of the funds
going to organizations that support
education, domestic violence prevention and
online safety.
For example, the Verizon Foundation’s
leading education technology initiative is
Thinkfinity.org, an award-winning K-12
website that offers free lesson plans, videos
and interactive learning materials. In 2010,
more than 3 million teachers, students and
parents visited Thinkfinity.org, making it the
third-most-visited site among major
educational websites.
Innovation for
A Connected Society
A
We enhanced our Thinkfinity.org search
engine and created thousands of new content
resources, including more than 1,000 new
educational videos. We also launched the
Thinkfinity Community, a social networking
site where teachers can share, learn and
discuss the latest tools that improve student
achievement. In all, Verizon trained more than
42,000 teachers on the benefits of using
Thinkfinity.org in the classroom in 2010,
bringing our training total to nearly 100,000
teachers across the U.S.
The Verizon Foundation has also invested
its capital, human resources and technol-
ogy toward preventing domestic violence.
Domestic violence affects people of all
backgrounds, including one in four women
and over 3 million children. The Verizon
Foundation works to increase awareness of
this pervasive crime, lending its resources and
technology to help victims and their families.
The Verizon-funded documentary, “Telling
Amy’s Story,” recounts the murder of a young
Pennsylvania mother by her abusive husband.
This gripping film about Amy McGee, a Verizon
employee, aired on nearly 300 PBS stations
in 2010 and will continue in 2011.
While domestic violence affects mil-
lions, sometimes a single call can make the
difference. Verizon’s HopeLine® program
refurbishes used phones and gives them to
those who might not otherwise have a way
to call for help. Since 2001, Verizon HopeLine
has collected more than 7.6 million phones,
awarded more than $10 million in grants
to shelters and prevention programs, and
donated nearly 100,000 cell phones and
more than 300 million free minutes of airtime
to victims, survivors and organizations.
In another area of corporate
responsibility, Verizon employees volunteered
more than 730,000 hours in 2010 to support
nonprofit organizations. Through Verizon
Volunteers, one of the largest employee
volunteer programs in the U.S., our employees
and retirees donated nearly 6 million
hours of community service since 2000.
For more information on Verizon’s
commitment to corporate responsibility, visit
verizon.com/responsibility.