Recycling cell phones helps fund programs for deployed soldiers
Carmel Ecker
Staff writer
February 11, 2008
Carmel Ecker
Lookout
Daryl Brown, general manager of AMJ Campbell Van Lines Victoria Office, shows off a week’s worth of donations - about 200 cell phones and accessories - to the Cell Phones for Soldiers program.
Brown stores all donations at his Langford warehouse until he has enough to ship to Mississauga, ON, where they are recycled.
Anyone with an old cell phone can help both the environment and military members serving in Afghanistan by dropping it off at their nearest AMJ Campbell Van Lines warehouse.
The moving company recently partnered with Cell Phones for Soldiers, a program that sells used phones to a private recycling company to fund programs that benefit deployed Canadian soldiers and their families.
Cell Phones for Soldiers earns between $4 and $10 for each cell phone donated and thousands have already been collected from across Canada.
“It’s a no-brainer for us,” says Daryl Brown, general manager of AMJ Campbell Van Lines in Langford. “We’ve become the drop-off point across Canada because we have the infrastructure in terms of storage and transportation.”
Phones that are too old or broken are recycled, while newer, operational phones are refurbished and sold in developing nations.
Brown is amazed at the volume and array of phones that have come through his facility. More than 200 phones were dropped off last week.
“We’re getting everything from new equipment to 50s and 60s James Bond equipment,” he says, harkening back to the days when a cell phone looked more like a giant walkie talkie sporting a massive antenna.
No phone is too old, he says, adding that batteries and other accessories are welcome too.
Money raised supports programs that ease the stress a long deployment puts on both military members and their families.
The program has paid for children of deployed soldiers to attend summer camps and helped them get post-secondary education with scholarships.
AMJ Campbell Van Lines also ships video equipment to Afghanistan so military members can record themselves reading bedtime stories that can be played back to their children at home.
As a former member of the British Navy, Brown knows what it’s like to be away from family.
He signed up for service at age 15 through the boy seaman program, and at 16 was posted to East Asia for three years.
Throughout his 22-year military career, many of Brown’s postings kept him from his wife Glenis, also a former member of the Royal Navy.
“I sympathize with the people out there. I think we all do. I can see, from their perspective, it’s pretty difficult to deal with,” says Brown.
Cell Phones for Soldiers is relatively new in Canada, but has been operating in the United States for four years. It began with teenage siblings Brittany and Robbie Bergquist of Norwell, Massachusetts, in 2004. They wanted to help military members offset the cost of phone calls home from deployments abroad, and discovered they could sell used cell phones for recycling.
With the money they earned, they purchased pre-paid phone cards and shipped them to American soldiers deployed overseas. Once the media caught wind of their idea, cell phones began flooding in.
Since the Canadian federal government provides phone cards to deployed members, Cell Phones for Soldiers in Canada gives other services and supplies to CF members.
People can drop off their old cell phones Monday to Friday between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. at AMJ Campbell Van Lines office or warehouse at 165-2924 Jacklin Road. For information on how to mail your phone in, go to www.cellphonesforsoldiers.ca.
