Wearing a pair of wings and a broad smile, Pam Delahanty passes out sets of plastic teeth to Appleton Elementary School third- graders to teach them how to brush and floss the right way to prevent tooth decay. It’s just another day at work as the Tooth Fairy’s Assistant for the dental hygienist.

“I can’t believe I get paid to do this,” Delahanty said. “I get to dress up, drive a really cool van and get to be with kids all day.”

Running the Monadnock Healthy Teeth program has been a fulltime job for Delahanty since 2003. The program offers free dental screenings and care to schoolchildren K through third grade in the ConVal, Conant and Mascenic School Districts. Since the program started, the incidence of tooth decay Delahanty has found in the children who have participated in the program has decreased by 44 percent.

“It’s a job where you feel you are really making a difference,” she said.

In 2008 the Nutrition Detective, nutritionist Donna Poe, joined the program and it was renamed Monadnock Healthy Teeth to Toes.

“Originally it started as obesity prevention,” Poe said.

To engage the children in a fun way, like Delahanty does, Poe introduces herself to the students as the Nutrition Detective and asks the students to investigate the food they eat and make healthy choices based on their findings. How much sugar is in that can of coke or that bag of Skittles? What would be a healthy alternative?

“We do it in such a fun way it makes the education work and they retain it,” Delahanty said.

The preventive dental care and nutrition education go hand and hand, she said. “It’s providing access to care for children and getting education out there that supports healthier life styles. ... The mouth is the portal to the rest of the body and if you don’t have a healthy mouth, you can’t eat, and there are so many diseases linked to poor oral health.”

While Poe will only visit a classroom once a year, Delahanty usually spends up to a week or more at a school. The first day is all about education. Then she returns to perform dental screenings, which is something all students can receive for free with parental consent. Offering the program to all students keeps it fun and inclusive, Delahanty said. “It’s great for all children to participate in at least the screening process.”

She also provides some basic care for children who don’t have dental homes and or dental insurance, she said. “I do their preventative services. I do their cleanings. I do their fluoride treatments. I do their sealants in the school.”

For care a dentist must provide, such as fillings and extractions, Delahanty finds a dentist for the child. The program, though, also helps fill in the gap when families can’t afford care and or don’t have insurance. The program pays for the care or directs families to the state Medicaid program for children, Healthy Kids Gold, when the family cannot afford it.

“The economy and where we’re at this year is definitely affecting things. People have lost insurance, so more people are qualifying for the program. So we are serving more people this year. They may have a dentist, but they don’t have insurance. It doesn’t help to have a dentist if you can’t afford to go there so we are able to help those families, too,” Delahanty said.

Delahanty brings her dental office to the schools she visits. The Healthy Teeth to Toes van was donated to the program by the Monadnock, Peterborough and Jaffrey-Rindge Rotary clubs last year.

“It is a traveling dental office and a traveling classroom because it has everything we need for education, too,” Delahanty said.

Poe’s nutrition portion of the program focuses on the state’s 5-2-1-0 Healthy NH. The statewide public education campaign aims to prevent childhood obesity by bringing awareness to the daily guidelines for nutrition and physical activity. (Eat at least five servings of fruits and vegetables a day. Cut screen time, television, computer or video games, to two hours or less a day. Participate in at least one hour of moderate to vigorous physical activity every day. Drink zero soda and sugar-sweetened sports and fruit drinks, water and three to four servings/day of fat-free/skim or 1percent milk is recommended instead.)

Because most people acquire their eating and oral health habits from home with their families, Delahanty and Poe said, they would like to see the program expand.

“Sometimes that’s where the challenge is, getting everyone on board,” Poe said.

“You’re educating the children,” Delahanty said. “But if the parents don’t have that education too and the right choices aren’t made at home... We’re trying to close that loop. That’s what we hope to do. I’d like to see the program go beyond third grade at some point. Gosh I’d like to see it reach adults. ... I would like to see everyone in the Monadnock region have access to dental care.”

The two are testing the waters for expanding the program. Poe recently gave a free seminar at the Bond Wellness Center teaching people how to feed their families in a healthy, fun and economical way. And together they have given several free seminars to groups of mothers with young children on good dental care and nutrition for both mom and baby.

“We have lots of ideas for the future,” Delahanty said.

Healthy Teeth to Toes is primarily funded through Monadnock Community Hospital. It is also funded through grants and donations from local civic groups and private contributions. Retired dentist Bob Duhaime of Peterborough also makes the program possible by volunteering as the supervising dentist for the program.