Darcy Dixon, a Shanghai American School Pudong High School psychology teacher, arrived home with her husband Bret Drury, a physics teacher, mid-March after an exhausting return to Shanghai. Dixon found the process of returning to Shanghai daunting for herself and several colleagues alike. Without an instant means of translation for even the simplest questions, Dixon and Drury were significantly stressed as they waited long hours to be allowed home.

“Ms. Higginbottom came through the process at the same time we did and actually spent even longer at the testing facility than we did,” said Dixon. “We all had a vested interested in helping others to have an easier go than we did.  It gave all of us a ‘pay it forward’ type of motivation.”

Thus, as a trio wishing to relieve travel stress in the near future, Operation Speed Dial was born. In her initial proposal of the Operation, Dixon described the initiative as “an offer of assistance to Pudong teachers, faculty, staff, and parents.”

“Having a bilingual in Chinese and English and bicultural  person on speed dial is not only comforting – but practical too,” Dixon said, recounting her experience having Sylvia Shen, the high school secretary’s assistance during her travels.

“Sylvia offered her language skills to me, and I called upon her three different times.  Once in person at the Pudong airport, and twice in my processing center room.  I actually held my phone up to the land line when the workers called for my temperature information.”

With this need for translation, Dixon called upon students for assistance, asking for volunteers to ease the faculty’s travel pains. “During this time of uncertainty, having access to a Chinese speaker will help reduce an already stressful experience,” Dixon said. “Plus, the students can be an active part in helping others through this arrival and quarantine process.”

With clubs like English Service Project under Michael McAdam and StudentsRTeachers under Isabella Sun each containing students fluent in English and Chinese, students were given the opportunity to both consolidate volunteer efforts and offer assistance to their teachers. In less than a week, the students quickly gathered interest from around 24 students from the classes of ’20 and ’21.

Student volunteers were carefully sorted into groups of three or more with flexible shifts of around five to eight hours each. The students cover at least 24 hours on-call, meaning that at least one of them will be awake and ready to respond at a moment’s notice for the entire stretch of time.

Every group of volunteers were given short briefings from Dixon, Drury, and a student who has either experienced the travel process or has provided services to one teacher already. A few key points were stressed in order to maintain respectful teacher-student relationships. “This is a simple translation service,” Dixon said, “not problem-solving. If teachers were to have personal issues, Dixon stressed, these were not up to the student to attempt to solve.

The volunteers managed to assist a handful of teachers from Sarah MacKenzie to Paul Sullivan. Unfortunately, the Operation was a short-lived one. “When China closed their borders to foreign nationals [on March 28th], Operation Speed Dial quickly ran out of travelers to help navigate the reentry process,” Dixon said. “Once the last people reached their homes, we suspended our service.”

Nevertheless, Operation Speed Dial was a rare opportunity to witness students giving back to their teachers, alleviating stress through simple means of translation or even just as a reassuring presence that there is someone on-call ready to help.

“That does not mean that Operation Speed Dial is over, we are waiting for the day when the border reopens, and we can again help people from our community return to Shanghai.”

Cynthia Wang, the author of this article, is a Co-President of the StudentsRTeachers club and thus was heavily involved in Operation Speed Dial.