The Pacific Dental Services Foundation wanted to establish a space to share our news, announcements, stories and other information as well as create a community dialogue. Many of those who are reading this blog post probably already know about The Foundation, but since this is our first post, we will explain what we do and discuss last year's annual highlights.
Every community has people who struggle with financial and geographical obstacles that prevent them from getting access to oral healthcare. The Pacific Dental Services Foundation has committed to ridding of those barriers and providing access, advocacy, tools and resources to help build a lasting and sustainable impact on the communities we serve and on those who choose to serve.
The PDS Foundation is a 501 (c) 3 non-profit charitable organization whose mission is to create opportunities to serve through improving oral healthcare locally, nationally and internationally. Because Pacific Dental Services supports The Foundation through the underwriting of salaries and administrative expenses, it allows 100% of all donations to go purely to program funding.
The Foundation has four programs in which we provide access and advocacy to disadvantaged and under-served communities:
Last year was very successful for the PDS Foundation, which more importantly, help make for a great year for thousands of others.
The Foundation held 37 Mobile Dental Clinic events across the United States within the last year. Through these events, the Foundation served more than 1,300 patients and donated dentistry totaling over $700,000.
We expanded our global impact through increased international outreach in Ethiopia and Fiji including the development of our newest dental clinic in Guatemala,which provides dental, medical and nutritional education to promote overall health and well-being. Our combined international outreach has served 2,040 patients with more than $1.4 million in donated dentistry.
The Foundation collaborated with Autism Speaks, American Academy of Developmental Medicine and Dentistry, and A.T. Still University in the development of a special needs training program. These clinics teach behavioral and environmental techniques that clinicians, dental assistants and their entire office staff can incorporate into their practices. So far we've held two very successful clinics, one in Denver and one in Houston, and we plan on holding several more throughout the next year.
In recognizing the importance of dental assistants to the future of dentistry, we have started accepting applications for the Dr. Carolyn Ghazal Dental Assisting Scholarship program. The average cost for an individual to attend an accredited dental assistant program is $15,000, so the scholarship was created to help underprivileged people find independence financially through the pursuit of education, mentorship and on-the-job training.
By creating these opportunities to serve, the Pacific Dental Services Foundation positively enhances the lives of those in need and in turn those who serve. We believe that service is a life-changing experience that activates deep emotional change in the one serving and that it is the act of giving of oneself that leads to deeper knowledge of self and, ultimately, a capacity for intimate relationships, both personally and spiritually.
