CareCredit continued its support as Founding Donor of the Give Kids A Smile fund with a $100,000 donation made at the recent Give Kids A Smile Advisory Board meeting. CareCredit's contribution supports the Give Kids A Smile fund, an initiative that stems from the increasing success of the annual Give Kids A Smile one-day event. The fund was established to provide grants to help dental practices and clinics expand access to care for children from low-income families. The 2008 grant recipients will be announced at the ADA Foundation Give Kids A Smile Awards Gala held in Washington, D.C. on May 13.
Give Kids A Smile aims to achieve two objectives: first, to enable dental team members and sponsors to provide free dental care, screening, and education to underserved children; and second, to raise public awareness that the children of this country deserve a better healthcare system that addresses their dental needs. This year's Give Kids A Smile one-day event was held on February 1. More than 1,700 programs participated and more than 44,000 volunteers, including 11,700 dentists, provided care to over 440,000 kids.
Since the inception of Give Kids A Smile in 2002, the program has demonstrated progressively favorable results every year, which prompted an initiative to expand the Give Kids A Smile program. As part of that initiative, a National Advisory Board accountable to the ADA Foundation was founded.
"Our goal is to make Give Kids A Smile more than just a single day of care," stated board member and vice president of marketing at CareCredit, Cindy Hearn. "We want to increase access to care throughout the year."
"We are very pleased that the ADA's Give Kids A Smile program has been so well received over the years," added ADA Executive Director James B. Bramson, DDS, "As a Founding Donor, CareCredit's generous contributions in 2007 and again in 2008 to the Give Kids A Smile fund helps us expand our grant program, and through collaboration and awareness, we can advocate for better access to oral healthcare for all children."
Information on the Give Kids A Smile program can be found at www.ada.org.
