Parents know that establishing good oral hygiene with kids is tough. According to Delta Dental’s 2025 State of America’s Oral Health and Wellness Report, 67% of parents said getting their children to brush their teeth was a challenge, and 51% said their kids weren’t flossing enough. Cavities are the most common chronic disease in children — and one of the most preventable through simple, daily habits.

Enter Teens Talk Teeth, a high school volunteer organization in Chicago with a mission to help school-aged children, especially those in underserved communities, understand the importance of oral health. Teens Talk Teeth meets kids where they are — in schools, during the school day — providing education that’s approachable and fun. By reaching children before oral health issues take hold, Teens Talk Teeth supports lifelong physical, mental, social, and financial well-being and meets a critical need in communities where access to care and education are limited.

Below, Teens Talk Teeth founder and high school student Adriana Nestorova shares what motivates her, why working with kids is important, and what’s next.

Can you explain how Teens Talk Teeth works?

We present to elementary school kids and make brushing, flossing, and healthy eating fun with games and hands-on demos. As teenagers, the kids look up to us, and we’re able to really engage and be relatable, so the lessons we share stick with them.

We’re partnered with several key organizations, including the Chicago Public Schools Office of Student Health and Wellness to connect us to schools; faculty at the UIC School of Dentistry for academic mentorship and curriculum review; and CareQuest Innovation Partners, Henry Schein, and the National Dental Association to support our expansion into high schools nationwide. Together, we’ve created a scalable model of youth empowerment that fills a critical gap in health education.

You’ve done so much impressive work! What inspired you to start Teens Talk Teeth?

After having a tooth pulled right before high school, I realized how important oral health is and how little we’re taught about it. As a public school student, I never received any oral health education, despite oral health’s vital role in whole health. I realized I could do something about this gap in health education and founded Teens Talk Teeth. My school provides dedicated time during the school week for student-led initiatives, which helped me establish and grow Teens Talk Teeth.

What does a typical session look like, and how do the kids react?

We present to kindergarten through fifth grade students, and our presentations fit into a single class period. We provide:

• A pre-quiz with six questions to establish baseline oral health knowledge.
• A presentation developed in partnership with pediatric dentists at the UIC College of Dentistry, which includes a slide where we get the kids to stand up and do the “floss” dance — they always love it!
• Games at stations with brushing, flossing, and trivia. In our brushing and flossing demos, we bring our “flossoraptor,” a dinosaur puppet that the kids have fun naming. Some of my favorites have been Mr. Bob Snickers and Ted Spaghetti.

Finally, we do a post-quiz to measure improvement from the beginning of the session and pass out dental kits with toothbrushes, toothpaste, and floss to every student.

After one of our presentations, a little girl came up to me and told me, “Wow, you guys are really the best.” Seeing how excited kids are is always the most rewarding part. Every time a kid laughs at our jokes or gets really into the presentation and starts grilling us with questions, it makes Teens Talk Teeth so worth it.

What’s next for Teens Talk Teeth?

We are working toward two goals: 1) help more kids in Chicago, particularly in underserved areas, and 2) share our playbook to help like-minded students set up chapters to reach more kids across the US.

We have received grants from CareQuest’s Community Grants Program and the Henry Schein Cares Foundation, and we just received confirmation that we have been incorporated as a nonprofit organization! With the help of CareQuest Innovation Partners, we have developed a playbook that outlines how to set up a chapter of Teens Talk Teeth at a high school anywhere in the US. We are also working with Henry Schein and the National Dental Association’s S.M.I.L.E Program to give their S.M.I.L.E ambassadors the option to open a chapter of Teens Talk Teeth.

What is your advice to other young leaders who want to start their own organizations?

1. Find people who are passionate about your mission!
2. Seek support from your school, teachers, and other educational institutions, like universities. At Teens Talk Teeth, I invited health leaders to share their experience and give us advice — for example, later this year, we are going to the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Medicine to hear from the Dean of Medical Education.
3. Search and apply for grants.
4. Reach out to organizations that are aligned with your mission.