Children Get Free Dental Care

El Dorado kids get free dental care

Though National Children’s Dental Health Month has passed, one California county is not waiting for February to come around again to give needy kids free dental care.

The El Dorado County Children’s Health Initiative provided local dentists to administer dental checkups and care for 125 children in the area with no dental insurance coverage, the Ledger Dispatch reports. The initiative was made possible through the Sacramento District Dental Foundation’s Smile for Kids program and is a continuation of a similar program implemented last month.

“This was truly a community effort to help these children, some of whom had never been to a dentist,” Vicki Cowley, health education coordinator for the initiative, told the news provider.

Cowley added that participation in the program was the highest since it started in 1991.

School nurses identified children with the poorest dental health as candidates for the free dental care from the volunteer dentists, according to the article. Children who needed extensive dental care were given a treatment plan to follow.

More: http://www.dentalplans.com

Free dental fair in Roanoke helps nearly one hundred children

A dental fair means a free check up for nearly one hundred kids in Roanoke. Every six months dental students from MCV/VCU come to Roanoke to give the kids a check-up and make sure everything looks healthy.

CHIP also tries to make learning how to brush fun. During the fair kids can have their picture taken with the tooth fairy, play with puppets that have teeth to brush and make decorate little boxes to take home that will one day hold their teeth when they come out.

But the dental fair is about more than a healthy smile.

C.H.I.P.‘s Robin Haldiman says,“We are really trying to teach the importance of early oral hygiene and taking care of your teeth so that when the teeth do come in there are not a lot of cavities and parents are getting them in for routine check-ups. The overall health of the child is better chip promotes the health of children and most of our children are often from low income families and often don’t have access to a dentist.“

More: http://www.wsls.com