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22.02.12

Mike Faulkner had a couple of teeth that had been hurting him for years. So when he learned about the giant two-day free dental clinic in Kansas City, Kan., he got there bright and early &#x2014; 3:30 Friday morning.</p><p>None too soon.</p><p>The doors to the Kansas Mission of Mercy clinic weren&#x2019;t scheduled to open until two hours later, but people from as far away as the Colorado border had begun arriving before 8 Thursday night.</p><p>Traffic was tied up, and the parking lot at the vacant Walmart where the clinic is being held was packed tighter than you&#x2019;d expect on Black Friday.</p><p>Organizers let people in early to spend the night indoors. The Salvation Army served breakfast. And by 6 a.m. &#x2013; before the first patient even sat in a dental chair &#x2013; all 1,100 slots for the day were filled and people were being turned away.</p><p>Saturday is the clinic&#x2019;s second and final day, and an equally large crowd is expected.</p><p>&#x201C;We&#x2019;re doing thousands and thousands of fillings and lots of extractions. Many patients have very sick teeth that are affecting their health,&#x201D; said Cindi Sherwood of Independence, Kan., one of the 173 dentists volunteering for the event. &#x201C;A lot of these patients are the working poor. They have jobs, they have a bunch of kids. They don&#x2019;t have insurance.&#x201D;</p><p>That insurance problem is enormous and helps account for the huge turnouts at the clinics Kansas Mission of Mercy holds across the state.</p><p>About 45 million Americans nationwide lack dental insurance coverage, a federal survey found in 2008. </p><p>A third of the people polled by the Kaiser Family Foundation last year said they were skipping dental care or checkups because of the cost.</p><p>Kansas is among a growing number of states, including Missouri, where dentists are organizing Mission of Mercy clinics to reach these underserved patients. </p><p>Faulkner&#x2019;s story is like that of a lot of the people who came to the clinic Friday. The 58-year-old Kansas City, Kan., man never liked going to the dentist, but he&#x2019;d go when his teeth started to hurt. His salvage yard job provided dental coverage.</p><p>But that insurance ended about five years ago when he quit to take care of his disabled wife. That&#x2019;s also about the time his mouth started to throb.</p><p>&#x201C;It swells up at times,&#x201D; he said. &#x201C;You kind of have to joke about it, the pain&#x2019;s so bad. But there&#x2019;s other people here in worse shape.&#x201D;</p><p>Consider Justin Edwards of Kansas City, Kan. He&#x2019;s 23 and this was his first visit ever to a dentist.</p><p>&#x201C;I haven&#x2019;t brushed my teeth since I was 6 years old,&#x201D; he admitted.</p><p>While his three children got checkups, Justin contemplated the work he needed &#x2014; 21 fillings and three extractions &#x2014; and wondered how much the dentists could do.</p><p>Justin and his wife, Jenna, lack dental insurance, but Medicaid covers their children. Jenna, whose mother works in a dentist&#x2019;s office, makes sure the kids go to a dentist twice a year.</p><p>Justin said his mother-in-law has been urging him to see a dentist.</p><p>&#x201C;Oh, she has. Everybody I know has gotten on my butt about it. It finally took my wife to do it.&#x201D;</p><p>Some people like Randi Bultman, 30, of Excelsior Springs have been more conscientious about their dental care but still have problems paying for it. </p><p>A few years ago Bultman was having a crown put on a molar when her employer dropped dental coverage. She couldn&#x2019;t afford to have the work completed, so she&#x2019;s been stuck with a gap in her teeth. </p><p>&#x201C;I really need to get something done,&#x201D; she said. &#x201C;It makes me feel self-conscious.&#x201D;</p><p> The first Mission of Mercy was held by dentists in Virginia in 2000 to bring dental care into poor areas of the Appalachians. The idea spread quickly, first to Texas, then Kansas and Nebraska and now about two dozen states nationwide.</p><p>Kansas held its first two Missions of Mercy in 2003 in Garden City, where people waited outside in a snowstorm, and at Kansas Speedway, where they sweltered in summer heat. Since then, Kansas dentists have held a clinic every year in a different part of the state.</p><p>This year&#x2019;s clinic is being funded by donations and corporate and foundation grants. Kansas City Kansas Community College, which owns the former Walmart building, is letting the dentists use the facility.</p><p>After so many years of experience, the clinic, organized through the Kansas Dental Charitable Foundation, went like clockwork. Nearly 1,600 volunteers, including dental hygienists, nurses and students, had signed up. They had X-ray equipment, a pharmacy and 106 treatment chairs.</p><p>Each patient was given a number, screened and then assigned to waiting areas for cleanings, fillings or extractions. As their numbers came up, the patients were escorted to the right rows of chairs.</p><p>Robert Tichenor, 25, of Kansas City, Kan., waited almost till noon to have three teeth pulled. He works construction but doesn&#x2019;t have dental coverage.</p><p>&#x201C;Right now, dental insurance is just too high,&#x201D; Tichenor said.</p><p>Tichenor&#x2019;s legs twitched and he groaned a bit as the dentist yanked the teeth and dropped them into a blue plastic cup.</p><p>Tichenor is used to pain. His teeth had been aching for a couple of years. </p><p>But until the Mission of Mercy clinic, Tichenor said, he&#x2019;d been &#x201C;just dealing with it. That&#x2019;s what you have to do when you have no money.&#x201D;

Source: Kansas City Star 22.02.12 The City of Texarkana, Texas Parks & Recreation Department announces the following Spring and Summer, 2012 activities and events. For more information, call the Parks office at (903) 798-3978 or visit the Southwest Center, 3222 West 7th Street unless otherwise noted.

COMMUNITY ACTIVITIES/EVENTS February 23rd & 24th (Thursday and Friday) 20th Annual Fishing Derby for area special needs
Source: KTBS

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