BUSDM Volunteers Help Give Kids A Smile

Sixteen BUSDM students earlier this month helped provide hands-on, interactive oral health education to over 100 students at a local Boys and Girls Club as part of a national effort to meet the dental needs of underserved children.

The Give Kids A Smile event, geared toward children between the ages of six and 18, was held at the Dearborn Middle School in Roxbury. Volunteers staffed information stations covering six topics in dental health: brushing and flossing; healthy diet; importance of teeth and taking care of them; tobacco and oral piercing; preventing decay and trauma; and an introduction to the dental profession.

According to Zhaomin Huang AS 07, community outreach chair for BUSDM’s chapter of the American Student Dental Association (ASDA), volunteering in a community setting is an essential part of her professional training. "It’s part of my professional responsibility to contribute to the local community," she says. "We need to treat the whole community as patients."

The event, organized for the third year by BUASDA in collaboration with the Division of Community Health Programs, was part of a national Give Kids A Smile campaign. The annual event addressing the dental needs of underserved children is coordinated by the American Dental Association (ADA). This year over 12,000 dentists and 27,000 dental team members treated more than 500,000 children throughout the country.