Fido commits $100,000 to environmental and community projects across the country

Canadians vote for local projects from Victoria to Montreal

To view the Social Media Release, click here: http://smr.newswire.ca/en/fido/fido-commits-100000-to-environmental-and-community

TORONTO, July 5, 2011 /PRNewswire/ - Fido and Evergreen today announced the launch of Fido Share Your Care™, a campaign to support local environmental and community projects. Canadians are invited to vote for their favourite project at www.shareyourcare.ca . In total, Fido will share $100,000 among 20 different local projects across Canada. "We want to work together and encourage Canadians to make choices that will reduce their ecological impact and benefit their communities directly," says Steven Sarfin, Senior Director, Marketing, Fido. "We believe in making our cities more liveable and we know that our customers want this too. We're happy to give Canadians the opportunity to show their support."

Each of the 20 projects involved with Share Your Care receive base support of $2,500 totaling $50,000. In addition, the remaining $50,000 will be distributed between the three projects which receive the most votes. From July 5th until August 14th, Facebook users can vote once per day for their favourite project at www.shareyourcare.ca. Votes will be gathered and ranked by popularity. The three community projects with the highest number of votes will be announced at the end of August.

Some of the organizations participating in Fido Share Your Care include the Gorge Waterway Initiative in Victoria BC, the Fletcher Wildlife Garden in Ottawa ON, Friends of the Coves Subwatershed in London ON, the Ann & Sandy Cross Conservation Area in Calgary AB, and Befriending the Mountain in Montreal QC.

"It's often difficult to see how we can make a difference in the face of global environmental issues," explains Geoff Cape, the Executive Director of Evergreen. "That's why we are pleased to be working with Fido to help local champions take up the challenge in their own way and in their own community, by applying a local solution through the Share Your Care initiative."

Partners since 2009, Fido and Evergreen have worked together to restore degraded public spaces, increase opportunities for outdoor recreation, education and enjoyment, as well as improve the health and biodiversity of natural habitats in urban communities. To date, Fido has helped Evergreen support more than 190 school ground greening projects, 800 public greening events and workshops, engage more than 20,000 volunteers and plant over 40,000 trees and shrubs across Canada.  In addition, Fido has saved over 3.62 tonnes of paper through its online billing initiative.

Since its launch in 1996, Fido continues to provide new programs and services to meet and reward the needs of its customers. The new FidoANSWERS™ service allows customers to easily speak to live customer service representatives at the touch of a button. With the upcoming FidoTRADE™ program, new or existing customers will be able to trade-in their used device towards the purchase or upgrade of a new device. Additionally, Fido customers automatically earn FidoDollars™ every month which can be used to try new products and services or reduce the price of a new phone. To date, more than $319M FidoDollars have been given to Fido customers.

For more information on Fido Share Your Care or other Fido and Evergreen initiatives, visit www.fido.ca/evergreen.

About Fido: Fido gives low prices a good home by offering Canadian consumers simple, high-value low price wireless voice and data products and services with excellent customer care. Operating on the global standard GSM and HSPA technology platforms, Fido customers can roam in over 200 countries/areas.

About Evergreen: Evergreen is a national not-for-profit organization that makes cities more livable. By deepening the connection between people and nature, and empowering Canadians to take a hands-on approach to their urban environments, Evergreen is improving the health of our cities—now and for the future.

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Photo:  http://smr.newswire.ca/media/articles/1419/main-en.jpg

SOURCE Fido