Update: Eagle Scout Project Gathers Cell Phones To Recycle

UPDATE: Spencer Wilson emails that the collection has concluded: "It was a great success and we've collected over 350 phones from the schools and the community." 

An Eagle Scout project by a Walnut Creek teenager is collecting used cell phones to be recycled for Cell Phones for Soldiers, which converts the donations into prepaid calling cards for U.S. troops overseas.

Sunday, Nov. 6, is the last scheduled day of collection at the Customer Service Department at Best Buy, 3260 Buskirk Ave., Pleasant Hill. Collection boxes were out last week in the main office of Las Lomas High School in Walnut Creek, the front office of Northgate High in Walnut Creek and the attendance office of Acalanes High in Lafayette.

Spencer Wilson, a senior at Las Lomas High and a Boy Scout from Troop 216 in Alamo, is asking the public's help with this, his Eagle project. Cell Phones for Soldiers is a nonprofit organization that sells the phones to a recycler and uses the proceeds to purchase prepaid calling cards, which are distributed among U.S. troops overseas. These efforts help alleviate the steep $7 to $8 per minute telephone costs associated with calling the U.S. from these faraway locations.