Christian Peterson has an ambitious but heart-warming goal to earn his Eagle Scout badge. That goal — to collect as many used cell phones as he can in a week so that calling cards can get in the hands of U.S. soldiers and be used phone their loved ones back home.
The 17-year-old Harrells Christian Academy senior said he was inspired by his father and grandfather who served the country in the U.S. Air Force. “I have a pretty large military background,” he stressed. “So, it was important to me to do this. I am just glad that I can help.”
Peterson said he came up with the idea for his Eagle Scout project when he was online.
“I am a big technology person, so when I was thinking about my Eagle project, I knew that the requirements were that it had to be a project that could actually be done and completed,” he explained.
Peterson went online and searched for things to do that involved technology drives and found the non-profit website cellphonesforsoldiers.com. “When I came across their webpage,” he said, “and once I saw it and read what they do, it just hit me — this is what I needed to be doing. Being a big technology person, I have a lot of phones laying around my house. Some are broken and some are fine, just old and not used anymore. I was looking around and I thought, if I have these just laying around, I am sure other kids my age do too. A lot of my friends have two or three phones just laying around that they don’t use. So this project was perfect for me to be involved with.”
In 2004, brother and sister Robbie and Brittany Bergquis, then 12 and a 13 years old, from Norwell, Mass., happened to see a newspaper article about a soldier overseas who ran up a $7,000 cell phone bill and they wanted to try to help. They began collecting cell phones, cell phone accessories, batteries, chargers, pagers, PDA’s, turning them into pre-paid calling cards for troops overseas. From that, Cell Phones for Soldiers was born.
Since then, the non-profit company has raised more than $7 million and provided more than 114 million minutes of free talk time for soldiers. The company has also recycled more than 8.3 million cell phones and mails out approximately 12,000 calling cards to soldiers each week.
“What they do is collect old or used cell phones and they take them to a recycling company that gives them money, in return, they take that money and invest it into purchasing pre-paid phone cards for our solider overseas,” Peterson said. “It is a great thing.”
Peterson, who is currently a Life Scout, which is just one step from being an Eagle Scout, began scouting when he was a young boy.
“Oh yeah, I started way back in the day,” he laughed. “I started out in Cub Scouts and just moved up along the way. I have earned my badges with each accomplishment, and I want this one to be the biggest and best one of all.”
So far, he has already contacted five local businesses in Clinton and one in Harrells for his project, which will officially begin during the last week of November.
“I am hitting up grocery stores and the larger store,s too,” he said. “Right now, I am still working with management to get permission to have a drop box in front of the stores, but I am confident we will get it soon. The stores I have been working with have been really cooperative, it is just getting the official approval from their corporate headquarters.”
Peterson says the easiest way to help is to put your old phones in a box and bring them with you.
“The best way to get involved is to carry your extra phones with you when you go out shopping,” he said. “I have selected stores where there is a high volume of customers, so you will see the drop boxes. Just drop the phones in there. It can be any type of mobile phone, no matter how old or how new. If it has any working parts in there, they can get money for it and send the cards to the troops.”
Although there are already two Cell Phones for Soldiers drop box sites in Clinton (at Go Toyota and Verizon, respectively), Peterson hopes that for one week, locals will donate to help him with his project.
“There are 8,000 people here in Clinton,” he attested, “so I am hoping for at least 4,000. If each person can get at least one thing in there, I will be happy.”
Peterson said after the project, he will go back to finishing his school year, and hopefully get a nod to attend N.C. State University next year.
“Right now I am hoping to study computer science,” he said. “I am hoping that it will come through, but I won’t find out until the end of December if I get accepted. I want to go into computer programming for my future career.”
In the meantime, he said smiling, he will do his best to continue to help soldiers call their families for free and, “if all goes well, I should have the badge by the end of this year.”
For more information on Cell Phones for Soldiers, click on to cellphonesforsoldiers.com.
Read more: The Sampson Independent
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