VIRGIN MOBILE FREE.I.P.
For the past four years, Virgin Mobile USA – with the help of Virgin Unite, the charitable arm of the Virgin Group, has engaged in efforts to raise awareness about youth homelessness. Since that time, Virgin has launched a number of innovative programs to encourage and enable customers and mobile users at large to take an active role and be involved in making change in their communities – through donating, volunteering, and even text messaging and downloading.

Virgin Mobile established the "Free I.P." program in 2009 at Virgin Mobile FreeFest as part of The RE*Generation initiative to raise awareness of the continuing problem of homeless youth. “These exciting partnerships, like the Monster Ball Tour Starring Lady Gaga, enable us to reach millions of people with incentives to volunteer,” said Dan Schulman, president of Virgin Mobile USA. “When we conducted ‘FREE I.P.’ as part of FreeFest and Lady Gaga’s earlier tour, we were able to generate more than 30,000 hours of community service, and produce more than 10,000 personal hygiene kits for distribution by homeless youth organizations.”

PARTNERSHIP WITH NAEHCY
This year, Virgin Mobile partners with the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth (NAEHCY) to support homeless youth – with a special emphasis on unaccompanied homeless youth – as they complete their high school education. This partnership will raise awareness about the challenges homeless youth face in succeeding in school. It will also provide direct benefit to homeless students by collecting in-kind donations to assist them in achieving academic and social success.

”We are thrilled to partner with Virgin Mobile to better meet the educational needs of homeless youth,” said Christina Endres, NAEHCY President. “School offers critical stability and support during times of crisis, and education is the surest path out of homelessness. We are so pleased to have the opportunity to engage music fans in this critical issue.”

As Lady Gaga prepares for the second leg of her critically-acclaimed electro-pop opera, Virgin Mobile is extending the FREE.I.P. program to local homeless education programs in many of the US Tour markets. Volunteers sign up through the Virgin hosted Lady Gaga tour site, agreeing to complete the task chosen for each market. Many homeless education liaisons and their community partners have chosen to receive donations from these concert goers to support the academic success of homeless students. Donations provide much-needed school and hygiene supplies that can help youth be ready to learn when they arrive at the school door.

MORE ABOUT VIRGIN MOBILE AND RE*GENERATION
In 2007, Virgin Mobile partnered with the National Alliance to End Homelessness and other groups to have Congress designate the month of November as National Homeless Youth Awareness Month. Virgin Mobile has introduced several programs over the last four years to make it easy for the public to help young people living on the streets. One program, Txt2Clothe, provided local youth agencies with access to more than 200,000 articles of new clothing. Read more about RE*Generation at the Virgin Mobile web site.

For further details on the FREE I.P. program including details on how to volunteer in cities along the way, visit Virgin Mobile Presents The Monster Ball Starring Lady Gaga.