ViewPoint Give Kids A Smile More than just a day

Give Kids A Smile recently notched its seventh year of impressive, if not astounding, metrics. In 2009, there were 1,707 programs across the country, staffed by more than 46,000 volunteers鈥攊ncluding 12,558 dentists鈥攚ho cared for more than 463,000 kids in need.

Multiply those numbers by seven and the cumulative impact of the program is staggering. And that just reflects the work of those who took the initiative to register their GKAS programs on ADA.org! You can bet there’s substantial underreporting.

It’s easy to see why GKAS has become the ADA’s signature program and the largest charitable oral health program in the country. It also is one of our country’s finest examples of sustainable public-private partnership, an ongoing pooling of resources and skills from the nonprofit and business worlds that is essential if we are to effectively address some of today’s urgent health care needs. GKAS succeeds with the participation of the entire dental community鈥攖he ADA, clinicians, educators and industry鈥攚orking closely with public health officials and health care advocacy groups.

GKAS helps raise public awareness of what a former surgeon general called the “silent epidemic of dental disease.” The program is dedicated to the elimination of caries in U.S. 5-year-olds by 2020. It is a catalyst to help local and regional, community-based programs become increasingly successful and effective at delivering care and advocating for a long-term solution for providing oral health care to every child in this country. In this sense, GKAS is the tide that lifts the boats of all other programs through visibility, credibility and best practices.

It has been my honor to be part of GKAS since its inception in 2002, when the ADA’s Board of Trustees not only gave the green light to the program but at the same time signaled a ramped-up commitment to the broader issue of access to oral health care for the underserved. Several years ago, Henry Schein identified increasing access to care for the underserved as an issue of great interest to our dental customers, as well as a priority of our company’s chairman and CEO, Stanley Bergman. When the opportunity arose for Henry Schein Dental to serve as exclusive distributor for professional products for GKAS, we eagerly embraced the responsibility as part of Henry Schein Cares, our global social responsibility program that is dedicated to “Helping Health Happen.”

Since that commitment, hundreds of Team Schein members have contributed their time and professional services to the GKAS program. We also have annually enlisted the support of approximately 50 of our supplier partners, whose generous product donations enable teams across the country to treat children through GKAS. The 50 treatment units that we provided for the GKAS pilot program have grown to 3,000 units annually, with each unit capable of serving up to 100 children.

The profession is also fortunate to have as GKAS sponsors Colgate and DEXIS Digital X-Ray, which provide free products and equipment to support Give Kids A Smile programs nationwide.

I was doubly honored when in 2007 the ADA decided to expand the GKAS franchise and asked me to chair a new National Advisory Board鈥攃omprising ADA, business and public health trustees鈥攖o work together and steer the expanded program. The Board was tasked with moving beyond the traditional GKAS programs on the first Friday in February and implementing a new slate of initiatives to call attention to access to care issues throughout the year. After a brief period of culture shock as I tried to learn the ropes of association governance, I can report several successes under the expansion umbrella.

First, we set up a Give Kids A Smile Fund in the ADA Foundation to administer an access grant program and support other program activities. Through generous corporate support from CareCredit, Colgate and the Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co., and via other fundraising initiatives, I’m pleased to report that the fund is thriving, and we’re about to award a second round of access grants as a result. One of the advisory board’s primary goals is to implement other fundraising platforms so our grant program can truly have an impact.

Second, we instituted an ADA Foundation GKAS Awards Gala to raise money for the fund, provide a forum for the GKAS community to come together and celebrate, and recognize members of Congress who support ADA/GKAS goals. Last year’s inaugural gala in Washington, D.C., was a rousing success鈥攔aising more than $230,000 for the fund and building community in the historic Mellon Auditorium. U.S. Reps. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) and Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) were honored for their support. This year’s gala moves to the Library of Congress, and the congressional honoree will be Rep. Michael Ross, Democrat of Arkansas, who will have a hand in health care reform legislation expected this year.

Third, with the support of the Dental Trade Alliance Foundation, we will stage our third annual Promising Practices Symposium on June 26. The symposia have been a great forum to bring GKAS program directors together to compare notes and identify best practices to help their programs thrive. This year’s symposium has an entirely different, though complementary, goal鈥擬aintaining the Momentum. It’s all about finding dental homes for the thousands of children seen on GKAS day so they receive ongoing rather than episodic care, a truly worthwhile goal.

And finally, we’ve started building a network of GKAS Program Champions with which we work to increase the resources we can apply to unmet oral health needs. Already our network includes TeamSmile; Colgate’s Bright Smiles, Bright Futures; Henry Schein Care’s Healthy Children, Healthy Lifestyles; America’s Dentists Care Foundation, also known as Missions of Mercy; the National Museum of Dentistry; and the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry’s Head Start Dental Home Initiative. An impressive list to be sure, and it’s easy to see how synergies between these worthwhile programs and GKAS will flow to the bottom line of caring for needy kids.

Another GKAS success this year was to secure the services of National League Most Valuable Player Albert Pujols of the St. Louis Cardinals to produce a TV public service announcement promoting GKAS. Millions of Americans have seen these 15-, 30- and 60-second spots, helping to raise public awareness of good oral health.

I hope you agree that through public-private partnership, we’ve taken great strides in making GKAS “more than just a day.” I hope you also agree that we need to do even better鈥攔aise more money, find new partners, expand our volunteer base鈥攊f we’re to move the access to care needle. The country’s economic traumas and the slashing of local and state health programs only heighten the need for us to do better.

A few years ago I heard Malcolm Gladwell, best-selling author of “The Tipping Point,” “Blink” and “Outliers,” speak at a dental meeting. Mr. Gladwell is just as accomplished a speaker as he is a writer, and he chose to address access to care for the underserved from the perspective of GKAS being a tipping point. His analogy rang true for me, and it’s been my goal ever since to grow GKAS until it truly is a tipping point, until we can point with pride to GKAS and say this is the program that woke people up and made them aware that oral health is just as important as any other health care issue and deserves their undivided attention and support.

Mr. Kess is the chair of the Give Kids A Smile National Advisory Board and vice president of Global Professional Relations, Henry Schein Inc., which was just named by Fortune Magazine as the top company in its industry for social responsibility for the fifth consecutive year.