ORANGE, Calif., February 12, 2018 – Western Dental & Orthodontics recently broke through the 130 school partnership ceiling on its “Smiles for Schools” program, which provides funding and oral health educational information with intermediate and high schools.
The “Smiles for Schools” program was started a year ago and Western Dental quickly reached its goal of 100 schools within nine months. The highly successful program has given out more than $65,000 in support of schools enabling student field trips, materials, and sports equipment among other positive actions.
The “Smiles for Schools” program pairs more than 240 offices of Western Dental and its affiliates with neighboring schools throughout California, Arizona and Texas. The new goal for 2018 is to partner with 240 schools.
“We are very proud of our Smiles for Schools program, which supports good oral health habits for children of all ages,” said Dr. John Luther, the company’s Chief Dental Officer. “Western Dental is committed to partnering with our neighborhood schools and sharing our expertise regarding proper dental health practices. This is so important for children to grasp at a young age.”
Western Dental is thetop provider of orthodontics services in California and Arizona, and is the leading provider of services to the Denti-Cal program that enables oral health care benefits for more than 13 million individuals and families in California.
“Smiles for Schools” funding, which is just one component of the program, is used by each school at their discretion. The program also provides support at school events, sharing oral health information with students and their parents as part of an ongoing partnership with each school.
Schools participating in the program use the funding for a variety of reasons, including field trips to educational sites, community service scholarships, and uniforms and equipment for sports teams.
“We will use our money from the Smiles for Schools program to buy more laptops for classroom use,” said John Gallegos, Community Liaison for Celerity Himalia Charter School in Los Angeles. “Our goal is to have one laptop for every student.”