KinderSmile Foundation is excited to share that KinderSmile Community Oral Health Center Trenton is getting ready to open its doors! Thank you for being part of our village, and for your continued support!
The Coronavirus COVID-19 Pandemic has highlighted economic and racial disparities in access to care, and KinderSmile Foundation’s mission to provide underserved children with access to comprehensive dental care and educate children and their families about the importance of dental hygiene, has been more important than ever before.
Our expansion into Trenton extends our efforts of eradicating dental disease across New Jersey with the establishment of KinderSmile Community Oral Health Center of Trenton, which fills a large gap in the community’s available resources, allowing underserved children and adults to receive high-quality comprehensive oral health care in a clean, welcoming, educational, and accessible setting.
We are so thrilled about this expansion, and we look forward to the new adventure! But we need your help! Our fundraising goal is to match a generous gift of $600,000 granted by the George H. and Estelle M. Sands Foundation by December 2020, as we continue to sow seeds in the community.
Our new state of the art Dental Home is a 13-chair facility in the urban community of Trenton. With over 85,000 residents, The City of Trenton is designated as medically underserved by the Commissioner of Health and Senior Services. Trenton Kids Count 2019 states that 34% of families with children are living below poverty levels, 63% of Trenton children have Medicaid/NJ FamilyCare, and 58% of expectant Trenton mothers receive late or no prenatal health care.
Due to the dire need of access to oral health care, KinderSmile Community Oral Health Care Trenton will provide quality comprehensive services for adults and children alike.
KinderSmile Foundation affiliates with various organizations in the community who help us connect with the families in need of our services. Developing relationships with a diverse network of community partners allows us to raise awareness to the inequities of oral health care access across the spectrum of child advocates and to educate more caregivers about dental hygiene as related to holistic health.
We are excited about our partnership with Dr. Jiaping Wang and Mercer County Community College, and our future plans to implement a Dental Assisting and Dental Hygiene Program. This addition will not only help mobilize students to the James Kearny Campus and contribute to workforce development in Trenton, but our Dental Home will provide a clinical environment for the students to garner experience through internships and volunteer work.
Before the COVID-19 Hiatus, as plans and construction of KinderSmile Community Oral Health Center Trenton were continuing, our partnerships in the Trenton community were flourishing!
In February, 225 children at Christina Seix Academy received oral health education and preventive dental care, and members of the Puerto Rican Community Center traveled to Bloomfield to be treated at KinderSmile Community Oral Health Center, our first Dental Home which opened its doors in August 2016.
We are grateful to The George H. and Estelle M. Sands Foundation, The Burke Foundation, and The Princeton Area Community Foundation, as well as to all of our partners, donors, and friends. Thank you! We could not do it without all of you! #ItTakesAVillageKSF
