GKAS in Maryland, Michigan and Texas

GKAS gets MouthPower: A University of Maryland Dental School student checks out the smile of a GKAS participant May 14 at the Dr. Samuel D. Harris National Museum of Dentistry Give Kids A Smile event. Students from the dental school provided screenings and oral health education for 50 schoolchildren that included a guided tour through the NMD’s signature MouthPower oral health education program, a hands-on exploration of how to brush and floss, how to eat healthy and how to avoid the dangers of tobacco. The National Museum of Dentistry is a Give Kids A Smile Program Champion.

Miles of Smiles: Dr. Bruce Seitz, left, of Jenison, Mich., volunteers in the Ottawa County Health Department’s dental van for its Give Kids A Smile observance Feb. 5. Assisting him is LuAnn Miller. Right, the Miles of Smiles mobile dental unit arrives at Great Lakes School in Holland, Mich., to provide comprehensive preventive and restorative services for GKAS day. Some 600 Ottawa County children received oral heath education and gift bags.

High marks: A young girl, left, inspects a dental radiograph at one of the 2010 North Texas Give Kids A Smile treatment sites, and Dr. Helena Tapias,聽right, a North Texas Hispanic Dental Association board member, coaxes a boy to show off his teeth at the Texas Woman’s University Feb. 20. The GKAS program reached children in the communities of Allen, Frisco, Flower Mound, Lewisville, McKinney and Plano, Texas鈥攔esulting in preventive care and treatment for 195 children and education to 900. The North Texas Hispanic Dental Association sponsored the GKAS event with support from the Hispanic Student Dental Association, Baylor College of Dentistry chapter, the North Texas Dental Society and the departments of dental hygiene at Collin County Community College and TWU.