Troops stationed overseas longing to hear a familiar voice can phone home for free.
A program that turns old cell phones into prepaid phone cards is racking up millions of minutes to distribute to GIs far away from their loved ones.
Willis-Reynolds Funeral Home in Newton is the local starting point for getting used cell phones into the global network that connects soldiers and their families.
"We're members of Veterans and Family Memorial Care," said Duane Alexander, advance funeral planning manager for Willis-Reynolds.
"We became involved in the cell phone project through them. It's good we can help soldiers call home from overseas."
Good indeed. Willis-Reynolds just completed its second round of collecting old cell phones. Alexander said the funeral home has a couple of hundred phones that will be turned into minutes for the soldiers.
Here's how the system works:
The old phones are sent to the nonprofit Cell Phones for Soldiers, the brainchild of two teenagers from Massachusetts who wanted to help troops stationed abroad.
That organization sells the phones to ReCellular, a company that specializes in refurbishing cell phones and repurposing key component parts.
All the money earned from sales to ReCellular is used to buy prepaid cell phone minutes.
Cell Phones for Soldiers manages the distribution of minutes to the troops.
In the last quarter, 4,000 cell phones were sold to ReCellular. The minutes for the troops now total 250 million.
That's a lot of calls back home.
Alexander said Willis-Reynolds staff feels fortunate for the opportunity to contribute to the program.
"Only one funeral home per county is a member of Veterans and Family Memorial Care," he said, "and that allows us to be involved in all kinds of things for the troops and veterans."
The funeral home works with the VFW and American Legions arranging military honors for funerals, besides collecting cell phones and serving families of veterans.
One thing that excites Alexander is Willis-Reynolds' involvement with the National Veterans History Archival Institute.
Among the nonprofit organization's goals is the acquisition of video archives of veterans. Alexander is in charge of videography for the institute at Willis-Reynolds.
"We make videos of the veterans telling their stories and recounting their military experiences," Alexander said.
"The institute sees that one copy goes to the veteran's family and another copy is given to the Library of Congress."
The Library of Congress plans to permanently maintain the videos.
The institute is also a repository for veterans' written recollections.
The archives are not limited to living veterans. Families of deceased veterans can share memorabilia to preserve the legacy of those who served in the military.
"It's an honor to be able to help our troops and contribute to the archives," Alexander said.
"We'll be collecting more cell phones, and we're establishing a routine where veterans and their families can make appointments for the video archive.
"Our troops deserve our support and the stories and service records of our veterans must not be lost," Alexander said.
Meanwhile, expect a lot of holiday cheer to be exchanged with those millions of cell phone minutes for the troops.
"Two hundred and fifty million minutes," Alexander said. "That's amazing."
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