Dentistry Among the Poor – April 2014 Update

Posted on May 8, 2014

More Volunteer Helpers

Our latest recruitment campaign has been very successful! Here are the names of those in our local Ottawa dental community who have recently expressed an interest in volunteering at one of our free dental outreach centres:

Dental Assistants:

Laura Creighton (DDS Columbia)
Linda Gonzales

Hygienists:

Rebecca Courtney
Sheena Osborne
Fiona Simmins

Dentistry from the Heart

Carp Family Dentistry hosted its 1st Annual Free Dental Care event on Saturday 3 May 2013. If this is the type of event you would like your dental workplace to get involved with why not contact Dr. Azhar Pardhan (888) 549-4652 to see what it takes to give back to your local community in this way.

Homeless Jesus

HomelessJesus3_sp To the casual observer it was a homeless man on a park bench. In reality it was a life-size sculpture of Jesus with his bare feet, wounded from his crucifixion, poking out from under a blanket. The Canadian sculptor, Timothy Schmalz says the controversial work was inspired by the biblical passage where Jesus tells his followers that whenever they help a person in need – “the least of my brothers and sisters” – they do it to him. The message is that for people of faith, those who feel like they’re the last, most needy and forgotten in fact should be the centre of our concern.

What we’ve done

Typically, private dental practices have overhead expenses of close to 70% to cover the costs of salaries, equipment, supplies, accommodation, maintenance, etc. Not so for the Ottawa Mission Dental Clinic or the Portable Ottawa Dental Service (PODS). We have been able to shrink program expenses to about 25%. For example, our annual overhead costs – to provide $250K of free dental care – is only about $50K. Be assured we are trying to stretch your donation of time and money to its fullest impact.

Activist and fundraiser Dan Pallotta, in his talk at the TED conference in 2013, suggests that more nonprofits should be rewarded for what they get done. Sounds good to us!

Extreme Makeover

Once again Milident Dental Laboratory comes through with a new set of dentures for our friends.

homeless-smile-makeover

Anthea Chang off to McGill Dentistry

anthea-chang Congratulations to Anthea Chang, RDH our PODS clinic coordinator who has been accepted into the McGill Faculty of Dentistry class of 2018. What an amazing job she has done to help establish the good works and reputation of the free dental program that has been set up with the Young Single Parent Support Network of Ottawa. A sincere thanks for all that Anthea has done. Can’t wait for her to come back to town and spearhead more initiatives with us.

I am taking resumes and doing interviews for her replacement. Let me know why this job would be just what you have been looking for. Call me at (613) 722-8191 or better yet e-mail tomharle@sympatico.ca so we can discuss your commitment to the position further.

Words of Wisdom

Each one of them is Jesus in disguise.
Mother Teresa

There is always the danger that we may just do the work for the sake of the work.
This is where the respect and the love and the devotion come in – that we do
it to Christ, and that’s why we try to do it as beautifully as possible.
Mother Teresa