Pa. Convention Center employees donate used cell phones to help abused women

The Pennsylvania Convention Center is teaming up with a cell phone provider to help abused women in our area.

John McNichol who heads up the convention center says employees quickly donated lots and lots of old phones when they found out they would be refurbished and given to victims of domestic violence.

“The enthusiasm around this was contagious,” he said. “We thought we would have a few dozen phones to donate and we thought that would be a nice gesture,  and it very quickly took on  we are donating 165 phones to the program.”

Christine Nieves of Women Against Abuse says it may seem that everyone already has a phone, but women in shelters make good use of the donations.

“While folks are in shelters and removed from the violence we don’t want them to feel so isolated where they are in hiding,” she said.

Women Against Abuse uses about 1,000 phones a year so the donation is a significant down payment on their annual goal.