I-Team Extras: Secrets in the Soil
Sep 11, 2008 1:16 pm US/Eastern
Dial-A-Life Phone Giveaway
MIAMI (CBS4) ―
The Dial-A-Life Program is a Miami-Dade County initiative which collects used, disconnected cellular phones and reprograms them so that eligible, at-risk county residents, such as elderly, disabled, low-income,domestic violence victims and families with at-risk or disabled children, can call 9-1-1 for emergency assistance.
On Thursday, in a symbolic remembrance of 9/11 seven years later, hundreds of phones had already been distributed.
Olga, an 88-year-old Miami woman, said she is living proof that a donated "Dial-A-Life" cell phone did save a life -- hers.
"The people who give away these little phones are angels" Olga implores.
Olga speaks from the heart. In the midst of a stroke she used her phone to call 911.
"Help. That's what I said ... help," Olga recounts the frightening ordeal that brought her a rescue team in minutes.
"That made it all worthwhile," explained Miami-Dade Commissioner Joe Martinez.
The program is his brainchild, first triggered to get such emergency phones into the hands of victims of domestic violence. It's now expanded to assist the elderly, shut-ins, the disabled and anyone who might find themselves at risk and in need of a cellular phone to make a 911 call.
"We are bombarded with phones from the public, county departments. We have a surplus of phones we are just waiting for the public to get them," said Carmen Williams, coordinator of the Dial-A-Life program.
Thousands of cell phones have been donated and were distributed today at New Horizons at 690 NW 60th Street in Liberty City.
If you can't travel there, contact Neighbors 4 Neighbors who partnered for the program with the goal of expanding outreach at 305-597-4404.
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