A cute and shy, five year-old girl visits Dental Aid. Right away, you notice that she isn't smiling. All of her teeth except for two of them have severe decay and are painful. "All you could see were tiny nubs because her teeth were literally rotten to the gum line," said Karen Cody Carlson, Dental Aid's president and CEO. "She drank soda for her nutrition because she couldn't eat anything."

The Uninsured Children's Oral Health program was able to subsidize the care needed to perform oral surgery on the little girl, relieving her of the pain and discomfort she had known for too long. "When you saw her three months later, you wouldn't think she was the same child. She went from never smiling or making eye contact, to smiling all the time. Now she's just blooming in school."

Tooth decay is the single most common chronic disease of childhood, occurring five times more frequently than asthma. Many of the children seen through the Uninsured Children's Oral Health program have never seen a dentist. Untreated dental disease can result in advanced oral diseases, speech problems, low self-esteem, and poor school performance. It's estimated that 52 million hours of school are missed yearly due to dental problems.

Through the Uninsured Children's Oral Health program, Dental Aid provides comprehensive dental care to low-income children who might otherwise go untreated. We believe that through this program Dental Aid will reduce or eliminate the need for extensive future restorative care. The Uninsured Children's Oral Health program is unique because it addresses a problem through intervention and education. In order to increase effectiveness, Dental Aid instructs the parents of children, and the children, about the need for good oral health care and good nutrition.

Dental Aid was the first not-for-profit comprehensive dental clinic in the United States. For over 32 years, we have served low-income and uninsured residents primarily of Boulder and Broomfield Counties. We have three clinics located in Boulder, Longmont, and Louisville, and one satellite clinic located in the Boulder Shelter for the Homeless. Although Dental Aid's fees for service are less than half of the usual and customary fees in the private sector, they are often still beyond the reach of our low-income patients. Dental Aid utilizes donations from private foundations, city and county governments, and community members to further subsidize care on an individual basis. In 2005, Dental Aid subsidized the market equivalent of $498,441 in clinical services in order to provide our patients with affordable oral health care. Our goal is to assist approximately 450 Dental Aid patients in 2007 through the Uninsured Children's Oral Health program.

"Most of our clients are working trying to makes ends meet. If you're trying to pay your rent and feed your children and get them clothes to go to school, one of the last things you have money for is dental care. That need tends to go to the bottom of the barrel," says Karen Cody Carlson.

Dental Aid has a goal of changing the oral health culture in communities. Our priority is to be a change agent in the communities that we serve, by ensuring access to comprehensive oral health care for high-risk and underserved populations, and employing prevention strategies and education, which will ensure sustained change. Dental Aid offers various funding programs for adults and children, which enables us to efficiently treat those in need of our services.

I recently began working for Dental Aid as the Resource Development Assistant, and because of my role in this organization, I see on a daily basis how generosity of others impacts the lives of those in need. Week after week, I see children whose parents would not otherwise be able to afford a dentist appointment, leave our Louisville Children's Clinic with smiling faces, healthy mouths, and oral education. Dental Aid serves nearly 7000 patients a year, over half of which are children. The recent difficult economic times have meant that many families do not have dental insurance, and there is an increased number of children who need extensive dental work. It is for these children that the Uninsured Children's Oral Health program was established.

For more information about Dental Aid, or to see how you can help, please visit www.dentalaid.org.