CELL PHONE LOST IN L.A., FOUND IN IRAQ.

Byline: DENNIS McCARTHY 

Odds and ends from around the Valley:

Here's one the volunteers at Operation Gratitude thought you might enjoy.

The day after Thanksgiving, they were working in the California National Guard Armory in Reseda assembling gift packages to send to U.S. troops in Iraq when Sharon Howard noticed her cell phone was missing.

``We laughingly speculated that it might have fallen out of her pocket and was on its way to Iraq,'' said Carolyn Blashek, who started Operation Gratitude in her Encino living room and has watched it grow until dozens of local volunteers helped her ship out more than 8,000 packages to our troops in Iraq.

One of those packages landed on the cot of Army Spc. Chad Butenschon on Christmas morning. He couldn't believe how generous the people of the San Fernando Valley were, sending soldiers all these nice things - and a cell phone, too.

Last Sunday morning, the phone in Howard's home rang. It was Butenschon calling to thank her. He had just returned home from Iraq.

``He said when he opened the package on Christmas and saw the cell phone, he thought, wow, these people are generous,'' she said, laughing.

``It was dead when he tried to turn it on, and he figured someone had probably dropped it into the package by mistake. He kept it with his belongings, and when he got home he charged it up and found my phone number stored in it.''

Butenschon wanted her address so he could mail back her cell phone, but what he really wanted was to thank her and the other volunteers at Operation Gratitude for making last Christmas a little bit cheerier for a couple of hundred soldiers in his unit.

All the hours these dedicated volunteers have spent this past year gathering and sending out those gift packages to faceless soldiers is finally coming full circle, Blashek said.

``As the first rotation of troops starts arriving home, they're starting to call us,'' she said. ``We're finally getting to put a voice and a face with those packages.''

The next big push for Operation Gratitude will begin later this month - to get more care packages to our troops in Iraq for Memorial Day, May 31.

If you want to become a volunteer or donate to the cause, visit www.opgratitude.com or call Blashek at [phone].

A lot of readers have called wanting a follow-up on the Feb. 27 column about fund-raising efforts for the Los Angeles Reading Service to move into newer, larger quarters at the Northridge Fashion Center so it can better serve the visually impaired in the Valley by reading them local news and advertisements in the Daily News.

``We're almost there,'' said Jolie Mason, founder of the service. ``We were $6,500 shy of meeting our goal in February; now we're only about $2,300 shy. Hopefully by May, we'll be moved in.''

The reading service, which has been in operation for 10 years, and the Braille Institute's Telephone Reader Program, in operation for three years, are the main way many of the 140,000 people with visual impairments in Los Angeles get their news every day.

The Telephone Reader uses a digital recording system for national news from USA Today, local news from KCAL television (Channel 9) and advertisements from local grocery, clothing and discount stores.

For more information on the Telephone Reader call 1-800-BRAILLE. For information on the Los Angeles Reading Service, which uses a special radio that picks up the subcarrier signal on KCSN-FM (88.5), call [phone].

The National POW-MIA Recognition Day ceremonies will be held at 10 a.m. April 10 in the Wadsworth Building on the West Los Angeles Veterans Affairs grounds, 11301 Wilshire Blvd.

Transportation will be available beginning at 9 a.m. from the Sepulveda V.A. Ambulatory Care Center in North Hills.

Veterans benefit counselors will be on hand at the West L.A. facility to assist veterans in all claims. For more information call [phone].

And finally, due to an editing error in Thursday's column, the correct date of the student film festival at Chaminade High School was omitted.

It will be held from 6 to 9 p.m. April 24 in the Bob Hope Student Center at the school, 7500 Chaminade Ave., West Hills. Admission is $3.

Dennis McCarthy, [phone]

dennis.mccarthy(at)dailynews.com