Need a laugh, encouragement? These KS kids can help with their Dial-a-Smile hotline
Are you feeling sad? Stressed? Or just need to hear a joke? Second-graders at Andover’s Sunflower Elementary School are here to help.
If you call their new Dial-A-Smile hotline at 844-DYL-SMYL, you’ll be guided to a menu where you can hear words of encouragement if you’re feeling down.
“Resting doesn’t mean giving up, it means you’re recharging,” one second-grader can be heard on the phone.
“Bad days don’t mean (a) bad life,” another second-graders says in the hotline.
“You’ve survived every hard day before,” another says.
Sponsored by Sander Orthodontic Arts, Dial-A-Smile is a project by Andover School District’s Center for Advanced Professional Studies (CAPS) and second-graders at Andover Sunflower Elementary School. The Eagle met five second-graders whose voices can be heard on the hotline: Bryn Turner, Tatum Lane, Owen Hansen, Aubrie Thomas and Sebastian Randolph.
Bryn put it best: “I just love to cheer people up and make them happy.”
More than just words of encouragement can be heard on the hotline. If you just want to laugh, the hotline can tell you jokes. Tatum’s favorite joke she read was “Where does a pencil go on vacation? Pennsylvania.”
Tatum said jokes can make her feel better because “they can make me laugh.”
CAPS offers juniors and seniors in the Andover School District opportunities to explore different careers and professional studies through projects and classes.
Terry Rombeck, Andover’s director of communications, said that they got the hotline idea from a CAPS program in Utah.
“We love the idea and we wanted to bring it to Andover and spread some joy here as well,” he said.
Allie Wells, who is finishing her junior year at Andover High School, is a student at CAPS.
Wells was a vital part in completing the Dial-A-Smile project, which began in the fall semester. She helped with project management.
“In the fall, there were three other CAPS students that recorded the second-graders and pretty much had it almost all the way done when I got the project, most of the … audio files were edited, and then I helped get it to Terry, and then he got it all put together, and then we found a sponsor, and now it’s across the finish line,” Wells said.
The sponsor, Sander Orthodonic Arts, was excited to be a part of the hotline, Rombeck said.
“Sander Orthodontics was super nice. We were going to call it Dial-A-Smile, so I figured it (would) fit in with the (theme),” Rombeck said.
“(Finding a sponsor) is what triggered us to be able to launch,” Rombeck said.
Through this project, Wells said that she learned about all it takes to put a hotline together.
“I learned that there were so many moving pieces with this project,” Well said.
Wells said through CAPS, she has been able to help with several projects, including a prom dress drive. There are two showcases per year, where students exhibit their projects from each semester as their final.
“You get (out) what you put into it,” Wells said. “We had a lot of kids that do things on their own. Our teachers don’t really find opportunities for you. You find your own opportunities (and) they help, obviously, if you need it. But it’s kind of, you lead your own education there.”
Wells said she was extremely happy with the result of Dial-A-Smile.
“It’s the cutest thing, I absolutely love it,” Wells said.
Rombeck said he hopes the hotline continues and maybe gets new second-graders involved year after year.
“I would love the idea if we could . . . next year have a different group of CAPS students and second-graders someplace and be able to relaunch it every year with new content,” he said.
