The Starship Hospital Foundation is staging Bring Phone To Work Day next Thursday, June 9th 2011. It’s inviting organisations to ask their staff, clients and contacts to collect as many old mobile phones as they can on one day – June 9th – and then donate these to Starship.
The Starship Foundation partners with recycling company Folamh to refurbish and on-sell the old phones to developing economies around the world, with proceeds going directly towards the funding of Starship’s National Air Ambulance Service. Any phones beyond repair are recycled through the correct environmental channels.
Year-round the Starship National Air Ambulance Service flies top medical experts to life-threatening emergencies around the country. These vary from complications arising from normal childhood illnesses such as the flu to accidents (drowning, car crashes, sporting injuries); as well as children suffering from heart conditions, seizures and meningitis. Starship’s specialists stabilise the children and allow them to be brought safely to Starship where they can receive the care they need.
The Foundation is committed to providing $1.5 million annually to the service. Bring Phone To Work Day is also the Starship Foundation’s way of celebrating World Environment Day in June, where organisations and individuals all over the world roll up their sleeves to help the planet.
More than 160 businesses have already got behind this worthy initiative including Air New Zealand, Barfoot & Thompson, EB Games, Giltrap Skoda, Mercury Energy and Merino Kids. Since the campaign launched just over two years ago, donated phones from around New Zealand have now helped raise more than $1 million for Starship. More than 270,000 phones have been donated in that time.
“No matter how many employees in an organisation, Bring Phone to Work Day is an excellent way to foster teamwork and practical way for staff to feel sense of pride in belonging to an organisation that actively supports the environment and helps protect New Zealand’s most precious treasure – our children,” says Starship Foundation CEO Brad Clark.
Organisations interested in taking part in Bring Phone To Work Day should visit www.starship.org.nz/phone for more information.
