Nassau County Give Kids A Smile

Every February for the last 20 years (except for 2021 due to Covid) the Nassau County Dental Society and the Nassau Academy of Dentistry rent out the Cradle of Aviation Museum on the first Friday to do our “Give Kids A Smile” Program. In 2023 almost 350 volunteers saw close to 1500 underserved children from around Nassau County, a new record for us! We gave them dental exams, oral hygiene instructions, nutritional counseling, and where appropriate, fluoride treatments and sealants. The Lion’s Club of Long Beach was also on hand to give the kids eye screenings. In the end over $100,000 of treatment was done on the day of the event. Over 30% of the children were identified with acute needs and arrangements were made for them to receive treatment at little to no cost, which will more than double the value of treatment from this event. The bonus of doing it at the museum is that they also get to visit the exhibits at no charge. In addition, we have a DJ on hand to entertain the children along with costumed characters, including Mr. Met from the NY Mets organization.  For many of these children it is their first dental experience, and we go out of our way to make it a memorable and enjoyable one.  Three years ago, we were contacted by a young dentist wishing to volunteer for our event who told us that as a child she attended one of our earlier events. She said it was the most memorable field trip she could recall, and the experience was one of the main reasons she chose dentistry as a career.  Our event changed her life, as it can do for many of the children in Nassau County by avoiding and alleviating dental pain. 

Toothaches are the leading cause of missed school days. One in seven children aged 6 to 12 suffered from toothache pain in the last 6 months.  Nationwide, children miss over 51 million hours of school time each year because of dental issues. One study showed that, on average, children experience 17.7 days of pain before they are seen by an emergency dentist or taken to an ER. This also causes their schoolwork to suffer because they are distracted by the pain.  Our program aims to address this problem.

Besides paying for the museum, printing forms, obtaining supplies, providing snacks and backpacks filled with dental items for the children and providing breakfast and lunch for the volunteers, many of the school districts do not have it in their budget to provide the buses to get the children to and from the museum, so we pay for them as well. Needless to say, all these costs have risen dramatically in the past few years, putting the future of this event in jeopardy. That is why we are asking for your help in keeping this program going into the future. Our next event is scheduled for Friday, February 2, 2024. Thank you for your consideration in helping us keep this event alive for the dental health of the children of Nassau County.