Electronicfest is the largest ongoing computer and electronics recycling event and swap meet in the southwestern United States. It started more than 20 years ago, outside of a small computer repair shop in south Scottsdale, that was owned by one of the scout’s fathers.
Boy Scouts Receive a Computer Donation
It has always been held on Sunday’s because thats when his shop was closed for the week, and the scouts soon discovered that other computer shops liked to sell at their meet too on Sunday’s because they too were closed for business. The scouts swap meet gave the computer shop owners a chance to visit with one another, meet computer shoppers, and sell off old or unused equipment to one another. In a few years time, the computer swap meet and recycling event grew to close to one hundred vendors, and ran the 3rd Sunday morning every month inside the old Los Arcos Mall (on McDowell Road & Scottsdale Road), it has since been torn down, and is now the ASU Skysong campus.
The glory years of the scouts computer swap meet were in the 1990′s at the old Smitty’s grocery store parking lot across from the Motorola plant in south Scottsdale, on McDowell Road between Hayden and Miller Roads. The venue was rather spartan, in than the closest restroom was at the 7-11 store down the way, but the lease terms were great. The City of Scottsdale was very gracious in allowing the scouts to operate the monthly computer recycling and swap meet rent free, as long as we properly maintained it.
Scouts Sales Area at Electronicfest
Around 2005 the lease on the property on McDowell Road expired, to become a retirement home. So the boy scouts from Troop 446 (chartered to Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church in Scottsdale) moved to the campus of Scottsdale Community College. The SCC staff were very kind to the scouts, and did their best to make the computer swap meet successful. The problem was that we had to pay rent for our space (a first for us) so we charged a parking fee to cover that cost, which proved disastrous for the event, and almost failed, if it weren’t for the move to the present site at Scottsdale Pavilions Shopping Center on Indian Bend Road and the 101 Freeway.
We moved to the Scottsdale Pavillions around 2007, where they along with the Salt River Pima Indian Community were very gracious in allowing the scouts to operate with free rent, and limited permiting to continue the swap meet. A year later, the boy scouts computer swap meet was rebranded Electronicfest to embrace the changes with computerization, and all the gadgetry that was influenced by that. Our recycling efforts grew dramatically with our new partnership with Westech Recyclers, lead by owner and original boy scout swap meet vendor Earl Knudsen, and his director of development Tom Holland. Their monthly attendance at our event, where they take, haul, and pay the scouts for the electronics waste that has been donated allowed the scouts to promote electronics recycling fully, without the fear they’d be short handed to handle the electronics recycling drop-offs (which had been a problem in past years).
Today, the swap meet – Electronicfest – is alive and well. Many of the first vendors are still there, and so are many of the shoppers. The event varies in size from month to month with 30 to 45 vendors, and hundreds of shoppers. The recycling program has been the best in the state of Arizona, in that we can take just about any kind of of electrical item – working or not – and find a good home for it: tv’s, computers, crt monitors, flat screens, cables, radios, scanners, printers, copiers, white appliances (those are washers, refrigerators, dishwashers), small kitchen appliances, batteries, video tapes, software, and more. The proceeds raised from Electronicsfest help boy scouts from Arizona afford summer camp, eagle scout projects, and earn their way on scout camping trips and outings. Which teaches our young men that the way to life is by earning their way, not getting a hand out.
