A Million New Smiles
Date Published:
My wish is to raise $200 million dollars so that the Charity I founded, Charitable Smiles Inc, can improve access to dental care for all the underserved people in our country that can't afford treatment.
In my profession I meet people every day that are suffering from all the negative impacts caused by poor oral health. I meet kids whose parents have let their teeth rot, elderly on fixed incomes, women in their 20's that have considered suicide as a viable alternative to dealing with their constant pain, recovered addicts looking to make a good first impression on a job interview so they can stay clean and turn their lives around, grandparents raising newborns that have put themselves last for over a decade, cancer survivors with tooth decay caused by chemotherapy and radiation, people that need full mouth reconstruction so they can have hip replacement surgery or a kidney transplant...I can literally go on for hours upon hours listing story after story. These are the "one off" stories that nobody ever hears about and there are millions of people out there dealing with this everyday. My 4 year old son needed some dental work recently and it cost me $837 dollars. I can't help but to put myself in the shoes of a parent that has absolutely no way to pay for their child to get rid of a toothache that's kept his or her child up for 3 nights in a row, whose grades are suffering because they sit in school unable to think straight because the pain is so bad. How desperate would I be? What if I didn't have a credit card, or a job, or a checking account? What would I do if my house just burnt down and we are living in a shelter and now my son has a massive toothache (met someone who delt with that).
What would I do?
What would YOU do?
This is my wish.
Jake
Founder - Charitable Smiles Inc
In my profession I meet people every day that are suffering from all the negative impacts caused by poor oral health. I meet kids whose parents have let their teeth rot, elderly on fixed incomes, women in their 20's that have considered suicide as a viable alternative to dealing with their constant pain, recovered addicts looking to make a good first impression on a job interview so they can stay clean and turn their lives around, grandparents raising newborns that have put themselves last for over a decade, cancer survivors with tooth decay caused by chemotherapy and radiation, people that need full mouth reconstruction so they can have hip replacement surgery or a kidney transplant...I can literally go on for hours upon hours listing story after story. These are the "one off" stories that nobody ever hears about and there are millions of people out there dealing with this everyday. My 4 year old son needed some dental work recently and it cost me $837 dollars. I can't help but to put myself in the shoes of a parent that has absolutely no way to pay for their child to get rid of a toothache that's kept his or her child up for 3 nights in a row, whose grades are suffering because they sit in school unable to think straight because the pain is so bad. How desperate would I be? What if I didn't have a credit card, or a job, or a checking account? What would I do if my house just burnt down and we are living in a shelter and now my son has a massive toothache (met someone who delt with that).
What would I do?
What would YOU do?
This is my wish.
Jake
Founder - Charitable Smiles Inc
