NEWS - Non-Profit Organizations

 SBJ Staff Report

Oct 17, 2011 – The Savannah Area Family Emergency Shelter has been the recipient of a grant announced last week by the Verizon Foundation, as has the Historic Georgia Girl Scouts.

The grant for the Savannah Area Family Emergency Shelter will support the organization’s Teen Dating Violence Prevention Project, a yearlong, county-wide dating violence awareness campaign for Chatham County high schools, both public and private. The campaign, ‘Love Shouldn't Hurt’, will target students in grades 9-12.  Georgia now ranks sixth in the country for its rate at which men kill women in single-victim homicides, most of which are domestic violence murders.

The Verizon Foundation held a press conference last week in Atlanta, in conjunction with Verizon Wireless' Journey of Hope national tour, to raise awareness around the issue of domestic violence, and awarded $105,000 in grants to nine organizations in Georgia to support programs dedicated to educating teens about dating and domestic violence prevention. 

"These grants from the Verizon Foundation are very generous and we are honored they recognize the importance of this issue and our work in Georgia," says Nicole Lesser of the Georgia Coalition Against Domestic Violence. "We work very hard to prevent family violence before it happens. Reaching teens, both boys and girls, regarding appropriate relationship behavior, signs of abuse and prevention techniques will help improve our state's families for future generations."

Throughout October, known as National Domestic Violence Awareness Month, Verizon is leading and supporting many initiatives to bring this silent epidemic into the light. Nearly one in four women, one in nine men, and over three million children have been affected by domestic violence. According to a recently released report, titled "When Men Murder Women: An Analysis of 2009 Homicide Data,"

"Domestic violence awareness and prevention efforts need to take place year round," said Michelle Miller, Director of Retail Sales for the Georgia/Alabama Region of Verizon Wireless.  "We are proud to support the critically important work that these organizations are undertaking on behalf of Georgia's women, children and families." 

The other organizations receiving the grants from the Verizon Foundation include:

- Columbus Alliance for Battered Women/Hope Harbour: The grant will purchase educational materials and fund community events about teen dating violence prevention, awareness and education. The organization will also plan a community-wide teen dating violence prevention and awareness rally February 2012 (designated by Congress as Teen Dating Violence Awareness and Prevention month).

- Georgia Coalition Against Domestic Violence (GCADV): This grant will allow GCADV to initiate a social media contest for teens to name a new project to prevent teen dating violence and provide services to victims. The project would focus on technology and safety and culminate with a statewide training for programs on teen dating violence and technology safety.

- Georgia Family and Education Research Council: This donation will allow the organization to manage the Healthy Relationships for Youth program, which is focused on training at-risk youth, ages 13-18, in building and maintaining healthy dating relationships within the communities of Lithonia, Duluth and Inner City Atlanta. 

- Girl Scouts of Historic Georgia: This grant will fund the "I Am A G.I.F.T. (Great Intelligent Fabulous & Terrific) You Will NOT Mistreat Me" program, designed to help girls learn to recognize the signs of controlling behavior and unacceptable violent behavior in their dating relationships and in the home. 

- Hiram High School: This grant supports the Teen Power! program, in which students are taught warning signs of dating violence. Students are trained in the issue, collaborate with each other and work with drama students to perform educational skits regarding the dangers of dating violence.

- Jewish Family and Career Services Inc.: These funds will support a part-time facilitator, community outreach, mileage, program materials and evaluation of the Shalom Bayit ("Peace in the Home") Teen Domestic Violence Prevention Initiative.

- Partnership Against Domestic Violence (PADV): These funds support PADV's Teen Dating Violence and Prevention Program, which raises public awareness about the issue of domestic violence, educates youth and adults on the dynamics of teen dating violence, promotes healthy relationships among adolescents and teens to prevent future violence, and advocates for change in community norms so that domestic and teen dating violence is not tolerated nor allowed to continue to exist.

- Cool Girls Inc. This grant will help support the Cool Girls Club, an after school program about Healthy Dating and Abusive Relationships. Funding will also support the Divas in Defense program to administer their "Fight Like a Girl" curriculum in nine schools for nine weeks.

Verizon has invested more than $28 million in domestic violence prevention, according to the company, through the Verizon Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Verizon.