Helping people in need

FALLBROOK — Discarded cell phones are needed for use by abused women and men in need of help. Tony Campbell, of Tony’s Treasures Thrift Store, is collecting phones and handing them out to people who might need them in an emergency. He explained that cell phones can be used to call 9-1-1 as long as their batteries are good; they don’t have to be connected to a phone plan to be used for that purpose.

Campbell knows what it feels like to need help. When the wildfires in 2001 burned his De Luz home, he lost everything. The people of Fallbrook were a big help to him, as was as a group in Bonsall th...