As the Jeremiah Community continues to seek ways to engage the neighborhood around us through partnerships with local institutions and organizations, one approach to seeking justice in our city is something that we are calling “Project Cellphone”.  Project Cellphone started out as a short-term fundraiser for a local elementary school (Alexander Muir Gladstone).  The idea was simple:  old cellphones are worth money to companies that recycle parts and pieces of old electronics.  What we wanted to do was help this school down the the street gather as many cellphones as possible so that they could raise some money for their extra-curricular programs without having to go door-to-door in the neighborhood begging for donations or selling anything.  Rather, students would simply offer to take “old junk” off peoples hands.  Because when people know that a couple of old cellphones that they haven’t used in 2-3 years could translate into a weeks worth of meals in the school’s breakfast program, support should be pretty easy to find.  Which is why…after a couple of weeks of pitching this idea we were surprised that the phones didn’t just start rolling in at an alarming rate.

After this mixed reaction to the first round of educating and collecting, we now find ourselves asking questions about what it means to “partner” with neighborhood organizations like AMG Elementary School.  Rather than the quick fundraiser that some of us were hoping to pull off we have discovered that partnering requires a little more time.  Partnering requires more listening.  Sometimes, partnering will require us to just sit still for a while–in order to stick together over the long haul.  In sitting together after “phase one” it has been exciting to see the project start to spread its roots in directions we would have overlooked if we did not slow down.  Currently, we are talking with student organizations at the school about making this project their own.  In speaking with multiple organizations about the environmental and economic dimensions of this project we are hearing ways to turn Project Cellphone into a long-term commitment to the community rather than just a simple fundraiser.  The idea of turning a local elementary school into a place that the whole community can bring their electronics to for recycling is something that will take time.  Rather than an in-and-out fundraiser, we now find ourselves in the middle of a movement attempting to develop a collective community conscience around our attitudes toward electronic waste.

As Project Cellphone continues to  grow through interactions with student groups at AMG Elementary School and we begin to have some conversations with other academic institutions, we will continue to accept any of your old cellphones, digital cameras, and printer cartridges at St. Anne’s Church on Gladstone.  These old electronics are worth $1-5 each, depending on the model and their condition.  If you have any of these just sitting in a “junk drawer” gather dust–Project Cellphone can put them to good use.