Latest news with #WindPhone
CBS News
19-07-2025
- Health
- CBS News
New Jersey Wind Phone offers grieving visitors a way to connect with deceased loved ones
A newly dedicated Wind Phone on the grounds of Cornerstone Church in Williamstown, New Jersey, offers a symbolic tether to communicate with deceased loved ones for grieving members of the community. A dedication was held on Wednesday for hospice care provider Angelic Health's Wind Phone – a disconnected rotary phone and a park bench set in nature, where you can sit and share your feelings, process your grief, pick up the phone and make a symbolic call to a lost loved one. The concept of the Wind Phone began in Japan in 2010 when creator Itaru Sasaki purchased an old phone booth and set it up in his garden as a way to grieve and communicate with his cousin, who had died of cancer. Since 2010, other Wind Phone projects have popped up in several countries, including hundreds in the United States. The idea for the newly created Wind Phone was a word-of-mouth project, said Angelic Health's bereavement coordinator, Ken Jackson, who worked with several others, including curator of the New Jersey Wind Phone project, Amy Dawson, to see the project through. "There are lots of strategies to cope with grief," Jackson explained, "some don't want to journal or vent. Sometimes the grief can get stored up." The physical and tactile act of picking up a phone is a great way to "feeling the connection again and processing the loss of your loved one." While on the grounds of Cornerstone Church, the Wind Phone is open to the public. To find out more about the project or to create your own Wind Phone, visit
CTV News
17-07-2025
- Entertainment
- CTV News
‘A really special idea:' B.C. man's discovery of unconnected rotary phones proves meaningful
Adam finds out why a B.C. man is finding the unexpected appearance of a disconnected rotary phone so meaningful David is walking his dog Frankie along the water, not far from where he and his siblings once rented a boat to say goodbye to their parents at sea. 'We poured out the ashes and a family orcas started jumping,' David recalls. 'And the captain said, 'Wow! You couldn't have scripted that any better.'' And ever since, David's been hoping to see some other serendipitous sign. 'Everybody says, 'Oh! I saw Mom here and here,'' David says. 'But it's been dead silent for me.' But then David happened upon an unusual set-up along his dog-walk route. Along the public path, someone had placed a chair, area rug, and table with a rotary phone on it. There was also a page of information on the table, with an invitation to use the phone to communicate with a loved one you've lost. 'What if I could pick up the phone and just talk? What would I say?' David recalls thinking to himself. 'I'm not ready.' So, David left the phone. But the phone didn't leave him. 'I walked down the path in tears,' David says. 'I was moved. I was touched.' So, the next day, he returned. 'I think it's a really special idea,' David smiles. The sign says it's a Wind Phone, inspired by an unconnected phone booth in Japan offering to connect the living with the dead following a devastating earthquake. 'I'll call my old number,' David says as he begins rotating the dial with his finger. It's the phone number he started dialling as a kid, on a red plastic home phone, that's now displayed in his place after having to sell his parent's house. A phone number he never stopped calling as a grown-up. 'I called Mom every Sunday,' David says. 'And whenever there was a hockey game, I'd call my Dad.' But today, on the Wind Phone, he can't complete the call. 'Am I ready?' David asks himself. 'No.' Because although the notebook beside the phone is filled with messages from other folks feeling grateful for the opportunity say what they wish they had, David is wanting to hear what he no longer can. 'Reassuring that it's all ok,' David says. But how can we hear a meaningful message, the Wind Phone seems to say, unless we listen. How can we see a sign, if we don't look? 'All these years I've been waiting for a sign,' David says. 'Maybe I gotta pick up the phone and call.' And when he's ready for that, David now knows he doesn't have to happen upon a Wind Phone to do it. At any time, he can pick up that old red-plastic home phone and hear that everything will be OK.
Yahoo
12-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
What is a Wind Phone? New Stone Mountain art piece helps callers heal
The Brief A new public art piece installed near Stone Mountain Park is helping provide a source of healing to anyone in the community going through loss. Kelly Campbell installed the Wind Phone in her front yard while dealing with the death of her father. The whole helps people cope with loss by making the intangible something you can physically grasp in your hand. STONE MOUNTAIN, Ga. - A new piece of public art in Stone Mountain Village has many people asking the same question - what is a Wind Phone? Kelly Campbell knows loss, but the death of her father during the COVID-19 pandemic hit differently. Campbell told FOX 5's Billy Heath that she felt so many things were left unsaid and wanted to find a way to deal with those emotions. While listening to a podcast, she learned about Wind Phones and how people around the world use them to cope by making the intangible something you can physically grasp in your hand. What we know The website describes the concept, originally created by Itaru Sasaki in Japan as follows: "A wind phone is connected to nowhere and everywhere at once. It's where those grieving can connect with their loved ones who died, letting their words be carried through the wind. Wind Phones are profoundly powerful as a source of comfort, hope, and support." Kelly has found this to be true. She constructed the phone over a six-month period after her wife Danielle gave the OK for the art installation. Originally, the phone was for use by her close family in her backyard, but Campbell decided she wanted to provide a source of healing to her neighbors and community as well. Campbell's home sits along East Mountain Street just outside of Stone Mountain Park, and hundreds of people hike into the park past her house each week. What they're saying She says the response has been overwhelmingly positive. "I'll hear our dogs barking, and I look out the window and see somebody holding their little kid up to the phone, and it just warms my heart to know that other people use it and get to experience what I experience." Campbell's neighbor, Starla Harris, was one of the first people to use the wind phone. Harris has experienced several deaths in her family in recent years and picked up the phone to speak with her father. "I read both signs and thought, well let me give it a shot. You know, I know I'm not going to hear my dad's voice on the other end, but I had a lot to say to him," Harris said. "I thought, let me just tell him my current events and tell him I miss him. When I hung up the phone, I broke down." Harris is incredibly thankful to her neighbor for crafting the phone and made sure to let her know how much the phone impacted her. What you can do If you want to learn more about wind phones or locate one near you, the website has several resources. The Source FOX 5 photojournalist Billy Heath reported this story out of Stone Mountain.
