Save a Cell Phone, Save a Life

Do not break up a functional cell phone just for the $4 motor! US cell phone carriers are required to complete 911 calls from any functional cell phone, even if the phone has no service contract. You can donate functional cell phones to women’s shelters or homeless-outreach programs, which will put them in the hands of folks that can really benefit from a wireless 911 hotline. When scrounging for vibrator motors, look for old pagers and smartphones. These almost always have a vibrate function, and it’s often easy to scrounge up a dead one, since smartphone touchscreens and keypads are delicate, and pagers are useless to begin with.