Phoning Home
20 November 2009The Pilkington Versailles, Kentucky plant has given serving soldiers overseas around 30 hours of free talk time with their loved ones - and there's more to come.
The plant is taking part in the Cell Phones for Soldiers campaign which recycles old cell phones to provide prepaid calling cards for US troops abroad. The phones are sent to a processing company called ReCellular which can pay the equivalent of an hour of talk time for the average phone. So far,
Cell Phones for Soldiers was founded in 2004 by 13-year-old Brittany Bergquist and her younger brother Robbie after they read about an Army Reserve stationed sergeant in Iraq, who ran up a $7,624 phone bill calling home to his family in the States.
They pooled their pocket money, collected from their friends and neighbors and staged charity events until eventually their campaign earned nationwide interest and support. Since teaming up with ReCellular, the world’s largest mobile device recycler, the charity has provided troops overseas with more than 500,000 one-hour calling cards – that’s 30 million minutes of talk time with their family and friends.