a national organization. Started in Florida, by a fellow who just wanted
to help his community. He embraced the idea of doing charity dentistry
in a single-day event, once yearly. That's spread across the country.
Dentistry From the Heart is represented in
50 states across the country. There might be 10 or 15 providers, here in
Texas, who actually do this. For us, it's an opportunity to give back to
the community. Help out quite a bit, for a need that's just
obvious.
Just today, we had 78 people show up this
morning before we even began. Kirsti Gilley: Number five. Speaker 3: My [inaudible 00:01:02]. Kirsti Gilley: How are you? Terry Barksdale: Over on this right, lower
jaw, I have a molar.
It's loose. It won't tighten back up, so I'm going to
try and get it extracted. Thomas Novak: Appearance began yesterday about
4 o'clock. People are camping out here.
I think that pretty much indicates a pretty
strong need for the services that we're providing today. Mike Riley: This doctor and his staff is a
Godsend. I just came in for a cleaning today. They did my cleaning in, probably, about 20
minutes time.
I had an extraction and a cleaning last year. They're exceptional people. Thomas Novak: Patients thank us all day long
for doing this sort of stuff, but the truth of the matter is, we're the ones who benefit
the most. Out of all the teeth we've fixed during the
course of the year, or take out, or whatever it is that we do, my team will tell you that
this is the most rewarding day that they have each year.
McKinley Lee: It just gives us a chance to
give back to the community that's so good to our practice. It just makes everyone of us to be able to
share our talents and our gifts in the dental field with patients in the community. Kirsti Gilley: A lot of these people can't
afford dentistry. This is free, so it feels good to have them
come in here and just make sure they're getting work that needs to be done.
It feels good. McKinley Lee: It's just nice to give back. Cecilia Aaron: I hope to get my teeth cleaned
and get them all fixed up, and maybe, in the future, I can start using them. I heard they're really good dentist place.
A couple of my friends use them. I've been here since 4 o'clock. I drove down from Joshua. I actually live 45 minutes away, but I heard
about this over the internet and then, apparently, it was in the paper and everything.
It's supposed to be like a great deal. It's the third annual thing. That's great that they're having this for
everybody, the people who really need it. Because we've been out here a while and they're
like, "My teeth hurt so bad." And they want their mouth done and all that
stuff.
It's just they can't afford to get it done. It's awesome that this group of people are
going to do it for them. Thomas Novak: Things that people are so nervous
and apprehensive about, they're so afraid of the cost and the procedures themselves. To be able to remove a lot of barriers, like
that, and just do the work and help them right out, man, they light up like a firecracker.
It's just great to see it and it's great for
us to be able to help. Come early because we invariably end up having
to send some people away. We'll see almost 100 today, but unfortunately,
some will have to go home without anything done, because we couldn't quite get to them. Come early, since you're going to be here
early, come comfy.
Wear comfortable clothes, make sure you're
warm, make sure you've got something to eat, bring a chair, bring something to do, whether
it's a book, or a video game, something like that, or just bring the lively art of conversation. Because you will not be alone waiting out
here, but we'd love to have you and hope you'll come out again next year..
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