Brief
Summary of the Smiles Program:
Smiles
for Success provides free dental care for women
who are unable to financially afford treatment, which
will improve oral health, relieve pain and restore self-confidence
and assurance. Helping to remove the barrier of dental
care, women can then become employed. SFS
provides an opportunity for the dental community to find
innovative, constructive ways and means to assist motivated
women to obtain employment and independence in an increasingly
competitive and demanding labor market.
Recognizing the enormous lack of adequate dental care
among the disadvantaged, Smiles For Success educates and instructs women treated
by the volunteer dentists, so that they and their families
will then seek and maintain permanent dental care as they
become financially stable.
teeth. In
early 1996 the pilot
program was launched in New York City and programs
in Boston,
Denver, and Philadelphia were developed in 1998.