« Return to News

Cell Phones and Sneakers Wanted

Published on Monday, August 09, 2010

The CIGNA Falmouth Road Race is spearheading two special drives. Both drives will aid our U.S. service men and women stationed in Afghanistan and elsewhere. We hope that, you, our runners will contribute lots of old cell phones and used sneakers to make their endeavors successful.

 

 

Cell Phones for Soldiers

 

The CIGNA Falmouth Road Race will again be partnering with Cell Phones for Soldiers. Cell Phone for Soldiers was founded in 2004 when young Brittany and Robbie Bergquist heard about a local Army reservist who faced a $7,600 bill for his cell phone calls home from Iraq.

The teenage siblings, who did not even own a cell phone, raided their piggy banks, put on bake sales, hounded their friends for spare change, all in order to help pay the soldier's cell phone bill. Eventually, the cell phone provider forgave the bill, but Brittany had an idea. Many of her friends got new phones every year. The Bergquists had six or more old phones in the house. Why not load those old phones with minutes and send them overseas. Good idea, but not feasible. However, from this idea Cell Phones for Soldiers was born.

The Bergquists found a recycler who would give them money for the old cell phones they collected. Eventually AT&T got interested and a partnership was founded. Now CPFS is able to get AT&T phone cards to U.S. military personal stationed in Iraq, Kuwait, and Afghanistan. These CPFS cards can be worth up to one hundred minutes on a call home for any of our servicemen/women.

The Bergquists will be at the CIGNA Falmouth Road Race Expo collecting cell phones. So go into your closets, reach into the back of kitchen drawers, search your garage and bring all your old, unwanted cell phones to the race. You can help get more minutes so our troops overseas can call home.

 

Falmouth Military Support Group's Sneaker Drive

 

The Falmouth Military Support Group (www.FMSGrp.org) in conjunction with the CIGNA Falmouth Road Race, and several local scout troops, will be running a new or slightly used sneaker drive from August 11, 2010 through Saturday, August 14, 2010.

The sneaker drive, a project conceived by several local service members deployed in Afghanistan, is headed by Major Don Chapin, a member of the Air National Guard at Otis Air National Guard Base. It was through e-mails that Carole Kenney of the FMSGrp suggested the idea of a sneaker collection to Maj. Chapin that would coincide with the road race. Major Chapin was writing of the Afghan people, our counterparts on the base . . . I see Afghan soldiers that sleep at their posts because that is where they have to sleep (in cots provided) . . . live for 30 days at a time on the top of a mountain at an observation post have boots that are issued without regard for size! Some have to cut open the backs of the boots to fit them on their feet. That is their world, all they have known. From there, the sneaker drive idea matured. In the midst of war our service members still want to be humanitarians and help others in any way they can.

The FMSGrp has arranged to get the gently used sneakers donated at Falmouth to Westover AFB, where they will be transported to Kabul. Once the sneakers arrive in Afghanistan, logistics are still being worked out, but Major Don Chapin and his crew will be passing out the sneakers by the middle of September.

The road race and the FMSGrp are asking the local community, as well as runners and participating in the race or just the general public to donate sneakers to this cause. Everyone has sneakers lying around in the back closets, or in the garage that they could just get rid of by donating them. Just think you can clean house and be a humanitarian at the same time.

A table will be set up at the race number pick-up and race expo, and manned by different scouting groups, members of the FMSGrp or by other volunteers wanting to help to collect the sneakers for Afghanistan. Hours for the collection are Aug.11, 12 5:00 to 9:00 p.m., and Aug 13, 14, from 10 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. at the Falmouth High School gymnasium.

Sneakers (new or slightly used) will be collected at three sites on race weekend: at the Falmouth Road Race during number pick up at the Falmouth High School; the morning of the Falmouth Walk; and at Major Chapin's family's new restaurant, Cranberry's, located on MacArthur Boulevard in Pocasset.