Cell Phones for Soldiers

Brittany and Robbie Bergquist founded their own nonprofit organization – and they luv the BSG!

One morning, while getting ready for school, Brittany Bergquist and her brother Robbie from Norwell, Massachusetts, heard on the news that an American soldier owed a phone company $7,000 for calling his family while serving in another country. Shocked, Brittany and Robbie knew they HAD to help.

They immediately ran upstairs and emptied their piggy banks to donate what they could to help this soldier. Brittany and Robbie felt that men and women in the military should be able to call their families and talk for free—especially when they’re stationed far away. Pretty simple idea, huh?

That was in 2004 when Brittany was 13 and Robbie was 12. Today, 17-year-old Brittany and 16-year-old Robbie have turned that simple idea into a nonprofit organization that has raised millions of dollars and purchased more than 450,000 pre-paid phone cards for soldiers to use to call their families.

How’d they do it? Well, they learned that old cell phones and other electronics like pagers and stuff can be recycled (which is totally a big PLUS for the environment). When you recycle them, you can get money back—kinda like how there are five-cent refunds on soda cans and stuff.

So, Brittany and Robbie started collecting people’s old cell phones in 2004 and using the money they got from recycling them to buy pre-paid phone cards. Now, they’ve hooked up with AT&T, and currently have cell-phone collection boxes in all 50 states and in Canada.

Click here to read Brittany and Robbie tell in their own words how they’ve changed the lives of American soldiers everywhere—and how THEIR lives have changed, too.

**********

Got an old cell phone? Brittany and Robbie give you all the info you need to donate it to their cause at cellphonesforsoldiers.com.