Charity Kids Company & Netmums want to turn old phones into meals for kids

By on Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Mobiles for Meals – parenting website, Netmums, has teamed up with Kids Company – a child poverty charity in London, to appeal for donations in the form of old mobile phones, which they say can feed an at-risk child for a month. T-Mobile and Orange are supporting the initiative; old phones can be donated in their stores, or posted for free to their recycling centres.

Netmums surveyed 1,116 parents, and found that 1 in 4 (24%) knew of a child in their area that may be going hungry, this initiative aims to raise £1 million to feed hungry children in London. In the past year, Kid Company has seen an increase of 200% of vulnerable children using their services.

What a clever way to raise money, by teaming up with those network providers, old phones can be recycled to raise cash, at a time where much of the economy would struggle to donate actual money – most of us have an old phone lying in a drawer somewhere. Parenting communities are one of the biggest and most prominent online, so I’m sure this campaign will be hugely successful, they have scheduled a ‘Twitter party’ which can be followed (or, participated in) using #Mobiles4Meals, on Thursday 12th July 12-1pm. The have a special celebrity guest, Natalie Cassidy, who is a parent and one of the many high profile supporters. See the celebrity gallery here.

So, a great cause, a great campaign which incorporates celebrity status, a new way to ask for funding and social aspects such as Twitter chat, photo galleries and Netmums discussion. The only problem I see, is Kids Company solely to support children in London – whereas the Netmums campaign talks generally of poverty among British children – which could cause some confusion among supporters.

One comment on the Netmums website was brilliant, he had been buying cheap phones from ebay, and donating them to the cause – clever.

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