On the Town: Dental clinic’s open house encourages smiles
Nothing gets the staff, board members and supporters of a nonprofit organization to break out in bigger smiles than to receive a grant to help them carry out their mission.
In the case of those associated with the Kids’ Community Dental Clinic, that mission is to improve the smiles and oral health of children through quality dental care and provide preventive education for low-income families in Burbank and the region.
The thing that currently has those dedicated to that mission all smiling is a grant they recently received from the Community Foundation of the Verdugos, which provides philanthropic leadership and financial resources to support community-related charities.
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“We have used the grant we received from the foundation to purchase much-needed new equipment,” said Dale Gorman, who serves as the clinic’s executive director. “And now that we have this equipment in place, we thought it would be a great time to open our doors and invite people from the community to come in and see what we do.”
That is exactly what Gorman and her team did this past week as they staged an open-house reception at their yellow cottage facility located on West Elmwood Avenue.
Guests and clinic supporters, including Mayor Jess Talamantes and Burbank Unified School Supt. Matt Hill, were welcomed to last week’s open house by National Charity League volunteers including Caroline Buffolino and her daughter, Annie, as well as Cynthia Wagner and her daughter, Paige Cizek.
Once inside the facility, guests were given a tour of the clinic by Gorman, dentist Richard Marias, who serves as the president of the Kids’ Community Dental Clinic board and dental advisory committee, dentist Punita Oswal, who is a volunteer with the clinic, and staff members dental hygientist Francesca Hoffman and dental assistants Ana Gomez and Miriam Pimpintel.
The Kids’ Community Dental Clinic was established in 2002. It was created to fill the crucial gap in oral healthcare services for children of low-income working families that for 35 years had been been provided by a childrens’ dental clinic run by the Sisters of Providence with St. Joseph Medical Center.
When the hospital closed its clinic in 1997, many working parents had a difficult time finding convenient and low-cost dental care for their children.
In the ensuing year, after much planning and with strong local support, the Kids’ Community Clinic of Burbank opened and, two years later, changed its name to the Kids’ Community Dental Clinic to emphasize a focus on oral healthcare to children who live outside Burbank.
With February being National Children’s Dental Health Month, Gorman and her staff will be doing their part to raise awareness about the importance of oral health in young people. They will offer a “Free February” program that, on each Saturday of the month, will provide free cleanings, fillings and sealants for children of low-income families up to the age of 18.
For more information about this program, or to become involved in the support of the Kids’ Community Dental Clinic, visit kidsclinic.org or call (818) 841-8010.
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DAVID LAURELL may be reached by email at dlaurell@aol.com or (818) 563-1007.
