Milford 5th graders create happiness hotline
574-832-4965, the number that could be the smile you need. Calling the right person when you need to talk to someone goes a long way. Milford teacher Mrs. Van Laeken knows the past two years has only made life harder.
"The world is really chaotic, it's kind of dark," said Van Laeken. "On the news it's kind of hard to find a good news story to share with kids right now. I teach my kids to be positive and do good things for other people and this just seem like a really easy way to get my kids thinking about others."
So her 5th grade class hope a quick phone call is exactly what you need. Whether it’s inspirational quotes, a motivational pep talk or maybe you just need a joke.
"What does a bee brush his hair with? a honeycomb," said Megan Warstler.
Something as simple as that, Warstler hopes made you just smile.
"It feels good that I'm making a difference kind of," said Warstler.
Charles Hunsberger’s advice is to just be yourself. A reminder sometimes we need.
"It made me feel good because not everybody is happy at sometimes," said Hunsberger.
"As much as adults feel the negative things happening in the world, the kids feel them just as much if not more sometimes," said Van Laeken. "You're right they haven't been in school, or if they've been in school they've been in quarantined or wearing masks or their friend was there one day and not there for 14 days. So It's so important to teach kids that there are good things happening in the world and they could be part of it."
But they’re not stopping there.
"I have families in my class that their parents don't speak English," said Van Laeken. "So when we were talking about putting this together, a couple of my boys were like well I want to do this but my mom wouldn't understand what we're saying."
Recording everything in Spanish as well, these 5th graders hope you give them a call.
"Call our phone line and change your day because that's totally what it will do," said Van Laeken.
She says they launched the phone number Tuesday and at last check, it's been called more than 240 times. The students are already working on their second batch of jokes and quotes to update the hotline.
If you're looking for your uplifting moment, their number is 574-832-4965
