Verizon HopeLine & Packers' Clay Matthews Team Up to Fight Domestic Violence

On Tuesday, October 7 at Wise Women Gathering Place in Green Bay, Green Bay Packers linebacker Clay Matthews joined us for a special check presentation of $100,000 from HopeLine to End Domestic Abuse Wisconsin.

Clay also helped Verizon’s Rhett Mitchell announce the continuation of “Protection is the Name of the Game,” our long-running HopeLine collection with the Green Bay Packers. Matthews encouraged all fans attending the Sunday night, November 9 game between the Green Bay Packers and the Chicago Bears to donate their no-longer-used wireless phones at special collection stations located around Lambeau Field. All donations go directly to HopeLinefrom Verizon, which provides funding for organizations like End Domestic Abuse WI and the Wise Women Gathering Place. These funds help the organizations continue serving survivors of domestic abuse and educating children and young adults to make decisions and develop relationships based on respect.

Alice Skenandore, executive Wise Women Gathering Place, Patti Seger, executive director End Domestic Abuse Wisconsin, Rhett Mitchell, Verizon Wireless, Clay Matthews, Green Bay Packers.

The $100,000 grant from HopeLine will be used to further expand End Domestic Abuse WI’s work addressing teen dating violence across Wisconsin. As part of the statewide coalition for local domestic violence service providers, End Domestic Abuse WI supports the work of more than 75 local programs. That includes Wise Women Gathering Place in Green Bay, which serves more than 50 middle and high school students from the Oneida Nation community with after-school programming each week.

In Wisconsin, local domestic violence service providers are critical to providing outreach to teens to stop violence before it happens.

The Green Bay Packers' Clay Matthews (center) joins Verizon in the fight against domestic abuse.

“We are so grateful that Verizon Wireless is investing in this issue of domestic violence,” said Alice Skenandore, executive director, Wise Women Gathering Place. “Wise Women Gathering Place is also grateful for our ongoing relationship with End Domestic Abuse WI and the support they have provided over the past years.”

According to End Domestic Abuse WI, teen dating violence is more common than most realize. 81% of parents don’t believe it is an issue in the lives of their teens, yet 1 in 3 adolescents will be affected by dating violence and 1.5 million high-school aged teens experience some form of physical violence from a dating partner each year. Furthermore, violent behavior typically begins between the ages of 12 and 18.

“Educating youth and teens about healthy relationships is essential to preventing violence from happening in the first place,” said Patti Seger, executive director, End Domestic Abuse WI. “If we fail to prevent domestic violence today amongst our young people, a certain percentage of them will be the victims of tomorrow.”

Verizon is committed to helping the nearly 1 in 4 women, 1 in 7 men and more than 3 million children in the United States affected by domestic violence each year. Through our HopeLine program, Verizon has donated more than 180,000 phones to survivors of domestic violence, and awarded more than $21 million in cash grants to our partner agencies.

Additionally, for the second consecutive year, Verizon is partnering with Bellin Health locations in northeast Wisconsin to set up HopeLine collection stations. Those not attending the game at Lambeau Field can still participate by donating their no-longer-used wireless phones at Bellin Health and Verizon Wireless locations throughout the month of October, which is also Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Devices are always accepted year-round in stores, as well as in the Atrium (near Guest Services desk) at Lambeau Field.

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