Troopers for troops

The teens of one local troop are working hard to connect the men and women serving as troops abroad with their loved ones.

As part of its community service, West Hempstead Boy Scout Troop 240 has started a Cell Phones for Soldiers project, effectively contributing to a national effort to provide troops with more talk time.

“Deployed soldiers get about 15 minutes of free talk time,” said Steven Trezza, Troop 240’s community service project coordinator. “That’s not very long. And it could be expensive to call home. It’s kind of a shame that they only get 15 minutes: they’re out there risking their lives.””

Trezza and his fellow troops came up with the Cell Phone for Soldiers idea in large part because of their Scout Master, Gary Port, who is a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve and the legal adviser to the commanding general of the 78th Division. Having served 25 years in the military and holding a strong interest in veterans rights and issues, Port has often brought soldiers to troop meetings as guest speakers.

“They got to see real live guys in uniforms talking about things that they’ve done,” Port said, adding that it may have inspired some of Scouts to take an interest in the soldiers serving their country. At the very least, Port said, through the visiting soldiers, the Scouts gain a better and deeper understanding of what service means. So, the Scout master wasn’t surprised to learn that his troop wanted to launch a project to help soldiers.

“This is what Boy Scouts is about,” Port said. “This is what Boy Scouts do, this is what we teach them that they should be doing and it’s great.”

Through a network of some 3,000 collection sites across the country, Cell Phones for Soldiers gathers donated cell phones and sends them to ReCellular, a company that pays Cell Phones for Soldiers for each donated phone, providing an hour of talk time for soldiers abroad. On its website, cellphonesforsoldiers.com, Cell Phones for Soldiers writes that it hopes to turn old cell phones into more than 12 million minutes of prepaid calling cards for U.S. troops stations overseas. To this end, it expects to collect 50,000 cell phones each month through the collection site network.

Now West Hempstead has its own, albeit small, collection site in the form of a box at the West Hempstead Public Library. Trezza is also working to spread the word throughout the community, including West Hempstead High School, to gain attention for the cause. The Scouts will give the project a three-month trial and then decide whether to expand it.