By Joseph Goral
Staff Writer
jgoral@mihomepaper.com
ORION TWP. — Lake Orion High School students volunteered to give up their cell phones and laptops on Friday to participate in the school’s tenth annual Cell Out for Soldiers event.
The charity event started with a group of senior boys who wanted to ask students to give up their phones during lunch, according to LOHS Leadership Advisor Lori Hogan. In the years since, it has raised around $24,000 for the nonprofit Cell Phones for Soldiers.
The organization provides cost-free communication services and emergency funding to active-duty military members and veterans, according to its website.
“They’re transitioning to phone plans and cell phones for veterans,” Hogan said. “So unhoused veterans and financially unstable veterans – they’re able to buy them cell phones.”
Students sealed their phones in bubble-wrapped envelopes, and stored them in their backpacks – this way phones are accessible if absolutely necessary.
Doing so makes for a unique and fun day for students of the digital age, according to senior Leadership class student Izzy Wotlinski.
“We’re the only school around this area that does it, and I think it’s just a different type of day here,” Wotlinski said. “Classes are always louder, the hallway is louder, we have a fun assembly (and) you get to communicate with people that you would never think that you would talk to without your phone.”
The fun continued at lunch with electronic-less activities, including Foosball games and giant connect four.
Each participating student also got a free dark blue Cell Out for Soldiers tenth anniversary t-shirt that includes each of the event’s 38 sponsors on the back. Hogan said these sponsors help pay for the shirts and experience.
While Wotlinski “wouldn’t say it’s difficult” to give up their phones, she said it helps that so many other students are participating and wearing the shirt. Students receive their shirts by proving their phone is sealed away.
The occasion also provides an extra learning experience for students because face-to-face conversation can cause stress and anxiety for some students, according to Hogan.
“So they’re really kind of forced outside of their comfort zone, in a good way for a good reason, to talk to other kids,” Hogan said, adding it is an important adulting skill for students to speak with people they normally would not.
“We think ‘if people serving our country can give up their phones for days and weeks and months at a time,’ we can do it for a full day,” Hogan said.
Participation numbers are still being tallied for this year’s event.
For more information on the non-profit visit www.cellphonesforsoldiers.com.