Small Town News

Oral Task Force launches mobile dental clinic

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"The Task Force, which focuses on children's oral health issues and chaired by Dr. Sean Buehler and Dr. Paul Holmes, had the vision of mobile dentistry for children and the passion to make this happen," Laura Roberts, executive director of the Lassen County Children and Families Commission said during the tour of the brand new dental mobile clinic.

Numerous sponsors throughout town have been working together to put together a dental mobile RV that will travel to the outskirts of Lassen County to help the families who live on the outside of town get their kids oral health care without going too far out of their way.

It is a convenient form of preventative dental that comes to the families instead of the families having to come to the dentist, said Doug Biddle, President and CEO of Plumas Bank.

Smiles for Life's Jeannie Huber and a member of the Task Force, affectionately known as the Tooth Fairy, was the one who "saw the vision of what could be," Maria Nye, branch manager for the Plumas Bank said about the dental hygienist.

"She put it on herself to ask about using the van and having the vision of mobile dentistry for children and the need to increase access to oral health care," Roberts said about Huber.

Huber will be the dental hygienist for the van and will be attending to all the teeth.

The Task Force was able to secure the van through Lassen County Drug and Alcohol.

"For several years, this motor home was used as a mobile outreach clinic owned and operated with grant funds received by Lassen County Alcohol and Drug. When the grant concluded the motor home was parked and no longer utilized," Roberts said.

After securing the van, it was then relocated to the nonprofit Northeastern Rural Health Clinic.

"There the van was transformed for the purpose of developing a mobile dental clinic for the delivery of children's oral health services in areas of high need in Lassen County," Roberts said. "The long journey of members of the Task Force soon began. They worked with other members of the community to obtain donations for funding, time, materials, labor and energy to completely remodel the van and create mobile dentistry for Lassen County children."

There was about two years of fundraising for the project and even longer for getting the project up and running.

Plumas Bank hosted the ribbon-cutting event and was one of the businesses donating funds to get the dental mobile off and running.

Shannon Ewing did the graphic design on the van and it features the importance of oral health care.



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© 2009 Westwood PinePress Westwood, California. All Rights Reserved. This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without express, written consent from DAS.

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