An old saying goes, “Every tooth in your head is a steppingstone on the pathway to overall health.”
Brothers Harrison Shaeffer and Daniel Sapozhnikov — both seniors at High Point University and members of the Eta Rho chapter of AEPi – have taken that mantra to heart and are working to improve children’s dental hygiene in communities of need throughout their area.
“During our sophomore year at High Point, we took a class together, and we learned about the alarming decay rates, not only in North Carolina, but just in the country in general. We’re both pre-dental, and we really wanted to make a change,” said Harrison.
Daniel explained, “We knew that we wanted to encourage better dental health or better dental habits, so we began going around to local schools and doing funny skits on the importance of brushing and flossing and then we’d hand out little baggies of toothbrushes, toothpaste, and floss.”
The need to promote good dental hygiene is especially important as a precursor to overall good health. “In the class we were taking together, we heard shocking statistics that certain populations have much higher incidences of tooth decay…not just in lower income areas, but also among college students,” said Harrison. “We want to go to dental school, and we knew that we wanted to do something about this because we want to be able to help everyone have better smiles, so we started this program at a preschool near us.”
From that simple goal – help everyone have better smiles – their organization was born. D&H Smiles has expanded to schools in seven states, 20 different colleges and it is now reaching out to communities in other countries.
“We’re not even dental students yet so we’re not doing any procedures or anything. We’re providing education and resources while advocating for individuals in these underserved communities,” said Daniel.
“We realized that a lot of times, too, when high school students transition into college, they lose that home routine. Some people go out partying and come back, and they won’t brush their teeth. We realized that we could do something about that. We could give them the supplies and knowledge in order to stay on top of that stuff.”
“We’ve been able to get to 20 different colleges because we travel all over the south from my home in Atlanta. Now, we’re starting to work the AEPi network to expand this program,” said Harrison.
“I’m a founding father of our chapter. During my sophomore year, nine other guys and I founded AEPi at High Point. We kind of felt like there wasn’t a huge Jewish presence on our campus and we wanted to start something different,” said Harrison.
From an initial 10 Founders, the Eta Rho colony has grown to 23 men and is continuing to grow and represent an enhanced Jewish presence on campus and brought more leadership opportunities to the Jewish community.
Daniel now serves as the chapter’s president and is using his AEPi connections to expand D&H Smiles. “I’m speaking to other AEPi chapters in North Carolina to help us expand our program to their campuses and communities.”
But the entire initiative began with sophomores in college.
“We were sitting there as sophomores and doing the math. We had three years left of college and then four years of dental school. We want to be dentists to help people, and it would have been seven or eight years before we could actually start making a difference. That’s really the passion that drove both of us to start this…we wanted to make a difference as soon as we could!”
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(To learn more about D&H Smiles and to support its mission, please visit https://www.dhsmiles.com. Brothers in the dental professions are especially encouraged to visit and help support their initiative.)
