Cameron School Board President Dr. Wyckoff will be offering free dental services for children at his clinic on Friday, February 4th as part of the Give Kids a Smile program. This program was created in 2002 by a group of dentists in St. Louis as a way to provide dental care for people who could not afford it. That one day with just a few dentists has now partnered with the American Dental Association and turned into a national program.

Parkview Elementary Nurse Beth Goll states how important it is for children to take good care of their teeth. “First off, dental health is just as important as physical health. If kids’ teeth are not healthy, they have a hard time concentrating from the pain. A lot of the time we can neglect our teeth because it can be expensive to go to the dentist and if you don’t have insurance or another way to pay for it, that’s one thing that gets put on the back burner. You can look in the mouths and there are some pretty big areas--kind of scary sometimes because you have to think that it would hurt terribly,” said Beth Goll.

Dr. Wyckoff decided to do what he could to end this problem in Cameron. “I saw a need for kids in our community and I thought that it would be a great way to give back. Being on the school board I see that there is a lot of time that kids miss school and statistics will show that 54 million hours of school time in the United States is missed by children each year because they have toothaches. What I want to do is put kids back in the classroom and one way of doing that is to take care of those that have dental needs. We want to make sure we do what’s best for the kids and I know there are people who just don’t have the finances or the ability to get in and have things done. I want them to not have to worry about having a tooth that hurts them and be able to focus on their studies,” said Dr. Wyckoff.

Projects like this truly are a benefit to our community. Parkview Elementary Principal Clark Dauner agrees, “I think it’s good for our community for a lot of reasons. It shows that the schools are there to help the community. It’s just one more thing we can do to show the community that it’s not just about math, and reading, and writing, but we are here for the overall welfare of kids. I think this program is great.” said Mr. Dauner.

As a child taking time to take care of your teeth is important. They may be baby teeth but if they are neglected they can really come back to bite you. Programs like this can make dental care reasonable and affordable for everyone.