The MOM Project-FREE dental care last weekend in Roanoke VA

[underpants]

I drove by this on the way to the gym on Saturday (visiting the area). Quite incredible-on many different levels

Dental workers provide care to the uninsured
A weekend clinic in Roanoke delivers hope for smiles in need.

http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/159635
Anyone with doubts about the need for dental care for the uninsured should have dropped by the Roanoke Civic Center on Thursday night.

By 1 a.m. Friday, adults seeking dental work began to form a line. By 6 a.m., it stretched from a side door of the coliseum out the parking lot and down Williamson Road.

The clinic, Lipford said, is one of the few options for her and other uninsured adults in the area.

Dr. Terry Dickerson, executive director of the Virginia Dental Association and creator of Mission of Mercy, said he aspired to deliver hope to patients like Lipford who have few options.

"Some people have been beaten down so much in their lives that they've become cynical," he said. Some patients are in disbelief when they hear all services at the clinic are free.

Dickerson, a retired dentist from Texas and the current executive director of the Virginia Dental Association, launched the first MOM project in 2000 at Wise. He realized the growing need for dental services in the United States while traveling abroad.

This weekend's clinic is one of five Mission of Mercy puts on annually and one of 36 clinics held in Virginia since 2000, Dickerson said.

He stood in a large room of the Roanoke Civic Center where 81 dentists, dental assistants and dental hygienists were there as volunteers. In all, more than 900 volunteers would work over the weekend to help an estimated 1,300 patients, he said.

By 11:30 a.m. Friday, Dickerson said the clinic had registered 800 people and treated nearly 400. Lipford had sat for treatment only a few minutes earlier.