CDA Foundation Supports Community Efforts to Increase Access to Care for Underserved Populations

The CDA Foundation Grant Program offers financial support to a wide variety of community oral health projects that increase access to care for vulnerable people. These programs are often the only safety net for families to receive dental care services.

While most community organizations receive some state and federal funding, much of the care provided is uncompensated. Organizations supported through the CDA Foundation Grant Program include nonprofit community dental clinics, mobile dental services (2007 and prior years) and prevention education activities. By supporting local efforts to expand access to care through financial grants, the CDA Foundation is able to effectively partner with local organizations to enhance their ability to positively impact the most vulnerable people across the state, including children, the working poor, and elderly.

In 2007, the CDA Foundation Grant Program provided support to the following recipients in efforts to help increase access to care for the underserved populations in California:

• Assistance League of Pomona Valley to support providing complete dental care for uninsured children of working families in the Pomona Valley area who are not receiving public assistance and have no other means for care.
• Central American Resource Center (CARECEN) to support providing low-cost dental services to 2,000 underserved individuals of this area’s primarily Latino population.
• Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) to support the funding necessary for the CHLA’s eHealth Teledentistry Program that utilizes technology to help reduce oral health disparities and facilitate pediatric sub-specialty treatment and referrals for the underserved children of agricultural workers.
• La Amistad De Jose Family Health Center, St. Joseph Hospital of Orange to support the expansion of dental services, which includes dental screenings and oral health education to 420 underserved children and urgent dental treatment to 200 of these children identified through the screenings.
• La Clinica de Tolosa to support covering the clinic’s unreimbursed costs from 500 plus dental visits for underserved children in the Paso Robles area.
• Mission City Community Network to support the clinic extension of its low-income and no-cost dental hours from 24 hours per week to 32 hours per week, resulting in basic and preventive dental services to an additional 1,040 patients.
• Sacramento District Dental Foundation (SDDS) to support the Smiles For Kids (SFK) project, a screening, treatment and follow-up care program that partners with area schools, community organizations and SDDS member dentists to provide dental services to the uninsured children in the greater Sacramento area.
• UCSD Student-Run Free Clinic to support the purchase of dental equipment for its Downtown Clinic, ultimately keeping the clinic open and sustaining its operations, as well as increasing the number of patients it is able to intake.
• University of Southern California-School of Dentistry to support the “Back to Work” Prosthesis for Homeless Persons project that includes dental prosthetic appliances to replace missing front teeth for individuals who have completed a rehabilitation program and are actively seeking employment.