Reach out and touch with gift of phones

PEMBROKE — One day Ellen Lowry came across a donation bag for an organization that provides soldiers with phone time.

She read about the program, Cell Phones for Soldiers, and discovered it gives 60 minutes of phone time to a military member stationed abroad for each donated cell phone.

As the unit manager for the Pembroke Boys & Girls Club, Lowry decided her kids could help out. She called a club meeting.“Guys, this is what I found and we need to do another community service project,” she told them. “I just kinda opened the door for the conversation to start and they ran with it.”The approximately 85 children who frequent the facility each day elected to adopt the project. Then Lowry asked for a goal: How many minutes should we give?

Someone said 10,000, 30,000, then 100,000.“Everybody said, ‘Yes, 100,000,” Lowry said. “Kids like to help. They fight amongst themselves but they really do like to help.”As of last week, the club had collected 16 phones, which were sealed in donation bags and stapled to the wall where the members see them each day.“The kids are pretty excited as they see they go up,” Lowry said. “And it’s another way that we promote citizenship. ... We’re gonna collect until we reach that 100,000.”

Sixteen phones means just 99,040 more minutes to go — or 1,650 more cell phones. Lowry’s sister, Ronda Deese, adopted the cause and began sending out e-mails to everyone she knows.“It helps a soldier and keeps them out of a landfill,” Deese said of Cell Phones for Soldiers, which turns the old phones into a recycling company for money. The company accepts just the phones — no batteries, chargers or accessories.

“If they don’t work, bring them here,” said club member Jullen Baxley, who has donated a phone. “Soldiers need a way to contact their families and tell them that they’re OK.”

Deese also took the idea to her Sunday school class, where she garnered one phone, and her own household.“I have three old cell phones at my house, and I’m thinking if we can get a couple more houses that had three old phones,” Deese said.Club member Romeo Haywood, 9, said he thought the project was a good idea “because my phones don’t work.”The children are pulling their families into the cause, too.“Me and Momma and my sister sent in some phones,” said 7-year-old Erin Hatcher.

Help out ...

Cell phones can be dropped off at locations in Pembroke and Lumberton. The phones can be non-functional and minus batteries, chargers and other accessories. For information, call the club at (910) 521-9005. The drop-off locations are: U.S. Cellular stores on Fayetteville Road, Lumberton, Union Chapel Road, Pembroke, and Radford Boulevard, Dillon, S.C.; Walmart in Pembroke; The Lumbee Tribe offices in Pembroke; Sandy Plains Daycare, Union Chapel Road, Pembroke; Lumbee Tribe Boys and Girls Club, Pembroke; and Pembroke Town Hall.