The Alachua County Tax Collector's Office, with the help of the citizens of Alachua County, has collected over 8,570 used cell phones. This is an ongoing effort. The Tax Collector's Office cell phone drop off locations is the County Administration Building Downtown at 12 SE 1st Street, the NW office at 5801 NW 34th Street, or the SW office at 3207 SW 35th Blvd., in the Wal-Mart Plaza. Cell phones, accessories, chargers, batteries, Blackberry PDAs and pagers may be dropped off at any of these locations during normal business hours. Cell phones are sent for recycling and the money raised helps Cell Phones for Soldiers buy calling cards for military personnel. Representatives of the Tax Collector's office have been attending the meetings of the Military Support Group of Alachua County to give them the calling cards to be included in the care packages sent to the troops.

The Florida Cell Phones for Soldiers locations have issued a challenge for local programs to collect 10,000 phones for the month of May. The winning organization will be treated to a personal visit by Robbie and Brittany Bergquist, the brother and sister that started the project in April 2004.

The Tax Collector's office is also collecting much needed items for the troops such as travel size toiletries, individual serving sizes of snacks, soups, cereal, drinks and miscellaneous items such as AA & AAA batteries, stationary and envelops, crossword puzzle books, used music CDs, DVD movies and travel size electronic games.

For a complete list on locations in Gainesville, visit Cell Phones For Soldier's Website