We Give to Receive

At Consumer Cellular, we’re not just employees. We’re also mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, and we all have neighbors and friends. We’re certainly proud of the daily chance we get to serve you. But we’re equally proud to be part of our community. With that in mind, I’d like to take a few minutes and review how our employees helped give back to their respective Portland, Phoenix and Redmond communities in 2012.

Volunteer Activities:

• Food Bank Events: Consumer Cellular employees, friends & families participated in 13 separate food bank events, donating over 782 hours repackaging bulk food for local food pantries in the Portland, Phoenix & Redmond areas.
• Red Cross Blood Drives: 152 donors participated in 4 on-site blood drives, donating 121 pints of blood, impacting 363 lives in our local communities.
• Race for the Cure: An amazing 286 team members raised over $15,250 in donations in Portland & Phoenix combined.
• School Supply Drive: Employees donated $5,090 in school supplies and, with our Consumer Cellular match program, our total donation to kids in need was $10,180.
• Fill the Bag Food Drive: We donated 28,722 pounds of food, supplying 22,093 meals (32 meals per employee) in our Portland, Phoenix & Redmond communities.
• Holiday Giving Tree: In support of Albertina Kerr (Portland), Save The Family (Phoenix) & Boys & Girls Club (Redmond), we adopted several families and provided wonderful gifts from the Giving Tree, including clothes, toys, sports equipment, toiletries, gift cards, books, games, bedding, etc.

Social Responsibility & Charitable Giving:

• Phone Recycling Program: In the first 9 months of 2012, over 25,000 phones were recycled and the proceeds of $29,616 went to Doernbecher Children’s Hospital.  Needless to say, this program is a win, win, win! It is good for you, good for kids and good for the environment. Thanks for donating your old phones and for helping us make this happen.
• Green Initiatives: In addition to our recycling efforts in the call centers, we are proud to say 95% of our shipping by-products are recycled and 85% of our customers are on email & standard billing which either eliminates or significantly reduces paper consumption. Given the number of phones and invoices we send out, these are incredible statistics and have a huge impact on our environment!
• National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA): To further reduce our carbon footprint on the environment, we donated $150,000 to the NPCA in 2012 on behalf of our customers who switched to email billing. Again, thank you for helping make this happen.
• Charity Match Program: In 2012 we implemented a Charity Match Program, under which we will match donations and volunteer hours up to $250 per employee. In 2012, this program resulted in approximately $160,000 worth of matching opportunities.  We look forward to even more matching opportunities this year.

In closing, I’d like to personally congratulate our employees and customers on the generosity they displayed to strangers as well as neighbors in 2012. Well done, one and all. I am reminded of a saying by Winston Churchill: “We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” Truer words were never spoken.