{"id":464,"date":"2004-12-27T21:32:36","date_gmt":"2004-12-28T03:32:36","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=464"},"modified":"2004-12-27T21:33:02","modified_gmt":"2004-12-28T03:33:02","slug":"kids-raise-money-for-soldiers-phone-cards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/?p=464","title":{"rendered":"Kids Raise Money for Soldiers’ Phone Cards"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sometimes, a great story<\/a> just speaks for itself.<\/p>\n

For all the billions of dollars being spent on the war in Iraq, 14-year-old Brittany Bergquist is surprised that the U.S. military doesn’t do what she and her little brother are doing: helping soldiers phone home free.<\/p>\n

“I’m kind of happy that they didn’t supply them,” she said, “because we’ve always wanted to do something for the soldiers.”<\/p>\n

With $14 from their piggy banks, she and 12-year-old brother Robbie started Cell Phones for Soldiers. In less than nine months, the organization has provided $250,000 worth of prepaid calling cards to American soldiers in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kuwait.<\/p>\n

They raise money by collecting old cellular phones and selling them to companies that refurbish them for resale.<\/p>\n

It all started in April, when the family heard about a Massachusetts soldier who ran up $7,600 in cell phone charges calling home from Iraq. T-Mobile forgave much of the bill. But Brittany and Robbie figured there must be other soldiers — including a cousin of theirs — who are stationed in Iraq and want to call home more often but cannot afford it.<\/p>\n

The Bergquist kids pooled their money and got friends to kick in $7 more. They opened a bank account at South Shore Savings Bank, which was so impressed it contributed $500. Yard sales followed, along with newspaper articles and TV interviews. Hundreds of schools and organizations, from Hawaii to Georgia, have started local chapters and become drop-off centers for used cell phones.<\/p>\n

“It’s hard doing everything,” said Brittany, an eighth-grader from the Boston suburb of Norwell. “But it doesn’t matter to us. We think about how hard the soldiers work every day and they don’t have a choice to stop.”<\/p>\n

Last week, the IRS granted Cell Phones for Soldiers nonprofit status, meaning contributions to the cause are tax-deductible.<\/p>\n

The USO, the private organization that entertains U.S. troops overseas, runs a similar program, called Operation Phone Home. A $10 donation will buy a serviceman or servicewoman a 100-minute global calling card.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Related sites:
\nCell Phones for Soldiers<\/a>
\nUSO<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes, a great story just speaks for itself. For all the billions of dollars being spent on the war in Iraq, 14-year-old Brittany Bergquist is surprised that the U.S. military doesn’t do what she and her little brother are doing: helping soldiers phone home free. “I’m kind of happy that they didn’t supply them,” she […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-military"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}