We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Pravneet and Hurshneet Chadha a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Pravneet and Hurshneet, appreciate you joining us today. What was it like going from idea to execution? Can you share some of the backstory and some of the major steps or milestones?

Journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step! We had our ‘AHA’ moment when we were discussing visitor restrictions to COVID patients during the pandemic lockdown. We realized that we were feeling lonely being at home, not being able to go to school and see friends but how lonely would be the patients who were in the hospital with COVID infection and no one to share their fears and feelings with? We soon started penning down positive thoughts and encouraging messages and reached out to friends who wanted to also make a difference and found what we were doing ‘simple and easy’ and in a nutshell ‘doable by anyone’. With the first box of 150 cards delivered to a local hospital, we got so many thank-you notes that we realized what we are doing was meaningful. This led to a domino effect in a good way that we realized small acts of kindness can make a meaningful impact. Soon we were able to engage youth volunteers across the world to join in the smile movement by doing daily acts of kindness. Having shared thousands of cards, hundreds of smile art kits, Dental hygiene kits, and thousands of reused book drives, our biggest achievement has been making 1000 more smile makers like us!

Pravneet and Hurshneet, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Smiles for all A2Z is the vision of Project Smile AZ. We believe that anyone, anywhere, anytime can be a smilemaker. Project Smile AZ was started in 2020 during the Pandemic lockdown when we were deeply touched by the story on a news channel about isolated patients who were separated from their loved ones. Both our parents are healthcare workers and they worked passionately during these difficult times helping patients. We were inspired to do something to make a difference. Not many avenues were open to doing community service, especially for youth. We started writing handmade cards with motivational messages to share with patients. We realized soon with thousands of patients in Phoenix alone, how could we reach each and every sick person in the world? We reached out to friends and neighbors and created a webpage and social media presence and soon my cards and messages motivated others to join the smile movement.

The cards project became very big and global and soon we started receiving donations of art supplies from people all over the world. We were also approached at the same time by people who wanted to join but did not have art supplies. We put two and two together and coordinated with the local Child Crisis Center of Arizona, ACCEL Center for children with disabilities, and the Welcome to America Project for refugees to share art kits made from donations. This was a win-win as it brought smiles to the children who received the kits and those receiving the cards made by them. Our interaction with these special populations opened our eyes to the needs of our community. We also realized that giving back brings as much joy to the person doing the act of kindness as it does to those receiving. In addition, we learned an important lesson that everyone can give something, their talent, their time, or sometimes things they don’t need like books/clothes, etc, and not just money. That was a Eureka Moment for us. We immediately chose the Motto for the Project to: Be a Smile maker- anyone, anywhere, anytime. Everyone has the superpower to make a difference in this world. Our project began to inspire smile-makers of all ages from 2-year-olds to 92 year old!

As life started returning more to normal with the pandemic recovering, we were able to connect with peers in real life. More youth were ready to connect and do things together and there was a strong desire and need to rebuild the bonds of connection. There was no better way than to do community service driven by passion together. we took the leap to formalize my project into a non-profit 501c3 to spread smiles for anyone in need. There were big roadblocks as there was no funding available and most adults did not trust a youth-led project to be serious.

We reached out in person, used school newsletters, and emailed NHS and boys and girls clubs everywhere. This is where technology came in handy. The Social media pages helped us reach thousands of people across the world who shared the passion of being a smile maker to someone in need.

We have now successfully led card drives, book drives, gently used cloth drives, dental hygiene kits, mask drives, art kit drives, rock painting, food drives, and a virtual book club. We tried with each new activity to also include a diverse group, from working with Title 1 schools to homeless individuals to refugees to children with disabilities to foster kids to veterans, to spread my smiles far and wide. With more than 80,000 smiles in just 3 years, we can’t wait what the future holds one smile at a time.

Each activity taught us that there are many ways to bring our community together in giving and importantly, that every person is able to be a giver of smiles. The vision of our project evolved and changed over time from what we alone could do to what anyone, anywhere, anytime could do to be a smile maker! We hope that our story inspires someone, anyone, just one to make a change in their community and be an everyday hero.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

One of the biggest lessons we had to unlearn was that you are too young to do anything on your own. We were only 12 and 14 years old when we started this project. We gave the first box of cards to a hospital where our parents worked, but then we decided to take it upon ourselves. We built our webpage, and social media sites and started reaching out to clubs and organizations to join us. People initially did not believe that we two were actually doing the work and often assumed our parents were behind it all. We connected with youth entrepreneurs across the globe through social media and discussed challenges and three journeys. We decided to outpour all that knowledge into an internship to build future community leaders and offer youth mentoring. We have led 2 successful summer internships with close to 50 interns who are now leading their projects in the community. We believe youth may be a fraction of the present but are 100% of the future.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

Project Smile AZ is evolving with time to make the next generation of smile makers and allow them to do acts of kindness that are ‘cool’ to do. We wanted to allow smile makers to do things they can do from where they are and with what they have. Though we started with motivational message cards, we evolved into a digital kindness drive flooding social media with kindness messages, Ecards for St Jude’s patients, and then the Ebook club. We started holding charity Esports tournaments to raise funds for cancer patients in need by forming Gamers4hope.com. We do in-person events and encourage virtual volunteering for card making, hygiene kits, snack bars, art kits and gently used book drives. These acts don’t require much funds or skills making it inclusive for anyone, anywhere to do. We have worked with children with disability who enjoy making cards from our smile art kits! the goal is to create smile makers doing acts of kindness to bring smiles for all.
We would say that we are ever evolving and pivoting to make our project interesting for youth or in fact, anyone to participate!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.projectsmileaz.org/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/projectsmileaz/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/projectsmileAZ/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/projectsmileaz