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Add a branch to your family tree and support a langur at the Endangered Primate Rescue Center. More >

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Raise Awareness

Hmmm. Door number one or door number two? It's hard to make good choices with little or no information, yet this is often what happens.
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Ally Marshall was trying to help animals in the wild when she started to collect cell phones for the Philadelphia Zoo's Return the Call of the Wild cell phone recycling program. Little did she know her efforts would align her with one of the city's most prestigious corporations.

"I am doing a service project to help support the Endangered Primate Rescue Center in Vietnam. Specifically, I'm hoping to save the douc langur's habitat…" This is the opening line of the letter 11-year-old Ally Marshall wrote to her family and friends, asking them to give her their used cell phones for recycling. Ally's grandmother, Kathryn Marshall-Carter, has been a docent at the Philadelphia Zoo for eight years and has been bringing Ally to see the animals for as long as she can remember. On one of her visits, Ally saw the Return the Call of the Wild cell phone collection box and thought it was a way she could help.

The Zoo's Docent Council started the Return the Call of the Wild initiative last year as a way to raise awareness about the environmental hazards of trashing used cell phones and how people could use these old phones to raise money for Zoo conservation efforts. Many of the workable phones collected are redistributed into developing markets such as Latin America for first-time, low-income users, and others are donated to charities for emergency use. Recyclable parts from unusable phones go to an EPA- certified recycler. Whatever remains is properly disposed of as hazardous waste.

Ally started with her friends and family and quickly moved on to seek permission from her school principal to put a collection box in the library. She decorated the box with bright colors to attract attention and strategically placed a Return the Call of the Wild poster nearby. Her marketing skills paid off, and Ally collected 95 phones in four months from students at Glenside's Copper Beach Elementary School. She quickly rose to stardom among her fellow classmates as "the one who's collecting the phones," gaining recognition for her environmental efforts and joining the ranks of PECO Energy, the region's first corporation to also partner with the Zoo to Return the Call of the Wild. Despite her newfound fame, Ally plans to maintain her grassroots style and expand her efforts to area high schools and local businesses.

When Ally comes to the Zoo for a visit or summer camp, she spends as much time as she can with her favorite animals, the giraffes and the gorillas. But she always makes sure to stop by and see the critically endangered douc langurs that are lucky to have people like her out there fighting for their survival. Sometimes hanging out with your grandmother is great for wildlife!