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Hundreds of children came to UB last week to take part in Give Kids a Smile Day. Photo: MARK MULVILLE

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  Give Kids a Smile Day: Kids receive free dental care during annual UB event. | View audio slideshow

By CHARLOTTE HSU

Published: February 10, 2010

Hundreds of children received free oral health care and learned about oral hygiene last week during the School of Dental Medicine’s ninth annual Give Kids A Smile Day, part of a national initiative to encourage healthy dental habits early in life.

From morning through the afternoon on Friday, young people and their parents flowed in and out of Squire Hall, South Campus, where volunteers welcomed them and checked coats. Patients, including boys and girls from Head Start who arrived on yellow school buses, received free dental exams, fluoride treatment, X-rays, sealant and instruction on how to take care of their teeth and gums.

Legions of volunteers, among them students, staff and faculty from UB, Erie Community College and the Educational Opportunity Center, offered services at sites that included Women and Children’s Hospital of Buffalo, Mercy Hospital and Squire Hall. At Squire, Smile Day participants filled two clinics, including a first-floor pediatric suite complete with pastel walls and stuffed teeth. Dentists and employees from private practices joined in the effort. Sabretooth, the Buffalo Sabres’ mascot, walked the hallways, posing for photographs with families.

Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown visited UB in the morning to offer support for the event, praising the dental school for its “tremendous work in the community.”

“You don’t hear about all of the work that they do,” Brown said, “but I can tell you they are in every section of the community, making sure that families, and in particular children, get good dental care. And we want to thank them for that.”

For the children, Give Kids A Smile Day was no regular day at the dentist. Balloons and grinning volunteers greeted the young patients. At a Teddy Bear Clinic in Harriman Hall, South Campus, boys and girls made their way through a series of stations where they learned about health and health professions by taking care of stuffed animals, brushing their teeth and “examining” the dolls for medical problems.

Even sitting in the dentist’s chair in the Squire clinic, many children were laughing. “Open wide like an alligator,” the volunteer dentists said. “Open big like a lion.”

Parents were grateful for the service.

“My kids haven’t had a dental visit actually for about a year and a half, almost two years, so this was a great opportunity to have everything done at one time,” said Diane Lyons, who brought her teenage daughter and son. “They had their exam, they had their cleaning, they had X-rays...They found a couple of cavities that we wouldn’t even have known [my son] had, and he’s having all the work done today. And my daughter, here, is having sealants put on, so yeah, we’re going to be all set.”

“It’s great,” she said, “because we don’t have any dental insurance.”