
Pictured above: Harold Girdlestone (left) and Chris Schoeller (right) meet with one of its donor companies.
Chris Schoeller worked in the electronics recycling industry for nearly two decades, helping with secure data destruction. However, after having a close family member die from a very aggressive form of dementia, Schoeller wanted to help donate money toward dementia and Alzheimer’s disease research to find a cure.
“Most people don’t know [Alzheimer’s and dementia] are the sixth leading cause of death in the U.S.,” he says. “This idea just came about—I’d be out, tell people what I do with old phones and computers. Then, the idea came to help individuals by taking stuff I was processing and give the money back to fund anything focused on finding a cure for or helping those who care for those impacted by Alzheimer’s or dementia.”
With that goal in mind, Schoeller launched Memory for Memory, West Palm Beach, Florida, in 2014 as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit electronics recycler.
Schoeller says the recycler provides information technology (IT) retirement solutions and uses Responsible Recycling Practices (R2) certified partners to ensure all assets are recycled securely, ethically and efficiently. The organization follows National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) 800-88 guidelines for media sanitization to overwrite data and personal information from data-bearing assets, such as hard drives, cellphones and optical media. Memory for Memory also performs secure data destruction.
As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, Schoeller says the organization donates to Alzheimer’s disease and dementia-related charities and causes. He notes that Memory to Memory is 100 percent funded by the value of the hardware it gets to perform secure data destruction jobs.
“Ultimately, what we’re doing is trying to give back to people and provide a service to them,” he says. “We’re not trying to make a ton of money. We’re doing [secure destruction] securely and ethically, and then trying to do good with it and be able to give back.”
This past year, Harold Girdlestone, vice president of operations at Memory for Memory and Schoeller’s partner, says the organization has really grown.
“We’ve turned it from an idea in 2014 to a sustaining business by 2017,” Girdlestone says. “Now, we’re in a growth stage.”
Memory for Memory initially focused on providing secure destruction services to small- and midsized businesses in the south Florida area.
However, this past year, Girdlestone says Memory for Memory has expanded more to service commercial clients across the U.S. While that wasn’t Memory for Memory’s goal, he says local clients would ask if the organization could service their offices in other parts of the U.S., like Chicago. Today, the organization services about 80 percent local customers and 20 percent across the U.S.
Schoeller says he is optimistic about the growth, as this means the nonprofit can donate more to Alzheimer’s and dementia-related causes. Some of the causes Memory for Memory has donated to include Cure Alzheimer’s Fund, Wellesley Hills, Massachusetts; Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation, New York City; and Alzheimer's Music Project, Pelham, Massachusetts.
For 2019, Girdlestone says Memory for Memory is hoping to increase the amount of equipment it can process, as well as increase awareness about responsible electronics recycling and awareness about Alzheimer’s and dementia programs in the community.
“Our revenue is from about 20 percent of the stuff that comes in that we fix, repair or recycle,” Schoeller adds. “We gave about 76 percent of our net profit back last year. Our goal is to increase both the giving percentage and the amount.”
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