About
the Program
Cell Phones for Soldiers hopes to turn old cell phones
into more than 12 million minutes of prepaid calling cards for U.S. troops stationed overseas in 2007. To do so, Cell Phones
for Soldiers expects to collect 15,000 cell phones each month through a network of more than 3,000 collection sites across
the country.
The phones are sent to ReCellular, which pays Cell Phones
for Soldiers for each donated phone – enough to provide an hour of talk time to soldiers abroad.
“Americans will replace an estimated 130 million
cell phones this year,” says Mike Newman, vice president of ReCellular, “with the majority of phones either discarded
or stuffed in a drawer. Most people don’t realize that the small sacrifice of donating their unwanted phones can
have a tremendous benefit for a worthy cause like Cell Phones for Soldiers.”
Cell Phones for Soldiers was founded by teenagers Robbie
and Brittany Bergquist from Norwell, Mass., with $21 of their own money. Since then, the registered 501c3 non-profit organization
has raised almost $1 million in donations and distributed more than 400,000 prepaid calling cards to soldiers serving overseas.
