50 USD
That's 2 weeks worth of groceries (at least where I am from), what the hell man.
Linux phones
You are probably thinking of the devkits. The community has mostly moved on to getting existing devices to run their favorite distribution. Which is mostly for fun's sake, since pretty much everyone has a desktop computer with the same (although IIRC someone installed PostmarketOS from a public use PC, that was nice). The community is tiny since it's right in between "modern day smartphones are a necessity" and "Android isn't open enough", anywhere below and above (incl. spectrums) are unlikely to think of getting (and daily using) desktop Linux on a phone.
dumbphone
(??)
I keep stating this and I will state it again. An MT62xxx nugget costs ~10 USD new online OR ~4 USD old new stock at the closest to me bazaar. OR ask relatives if they have a keypad phone in a drawer somewhere, you will probably get it for FREE and it will have quite a lot more functionality and homebrew (not exactly a "dumbphone", more like a "smartphone" but by 2000s definitions).
not everyone on here is super tech savy
Well, I personally wouldn't consider it difficult. If you happen to get a phone that allows proper bootloader lock of course (bypassing gets more complicated, not end of the world most of the time). See here and there.
Ask friends. If you don't have any, I can volunteer to remote into your computer and do the thing, actually.
bricked (...) Unihertz Jelly Star
Do you still have it? Should be relatively easy to unbrick that nugget.