News Releases
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
DATE: May 17, 2006
For more information, contact: Virginia Elliott, Vice President
for Programs, 620-662-8586
Western Kansas oral health program receives Project of the Year award
Hutchinson, KS—United Methodist Western Kansas Mexican-American Ministries (MAM), Garden City, received the Janet Sevier Gilbreath Special Project of the Year Recognition Award presented annually by the United Methodist Health Ministry Fund to acknowledge its project of the year. MAM holds the honor of being the only organization to have received two Janet Sevier Gilbreath awards; the first award ever presented went to MAM in 1988 for a low-income medical clinic project covering four cities in southwest Kansas.
MAM’s Lifetime Smiles program was selected to exemplify the vision of a Christian health community. Started in 2000 in response to growing unmet oral health needs recognized at the MAM clinic, Lifetime Smiles is a comprehensive oral health program aimed at education, decay prevention, and access to dental care in southwest Kansas. Having provided screening for over 25,000 children in its first five years of operation, a significant improvement in oral health became evident as the percentage of students with oral health problems requiring referral to a dentist fell from 51 percent in the first year to 39 percent in the fifth.
In addition to the school screenings, Lifetime Smiles was responsible for a media campaign over five years which reached an audience of 70,000 each week and an education campaign that reached 39,000 people, providing information and handouts at 635 events. Lifetime Smiles implemented monthly free clinics providing sealants and fluoride varnish to prevent dental problems as well as providing treatment of existing problems. Working to address barriers to treatment, the MAM project expanded the number of dentists providing free and reduced-cost care and increased the number accepting Medicaid/HealthWave patients.
Lifetime Smiles attracted a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Local Initiative Funding Partners program, bringing $351,140 to Kansas for oral health from the national foundation. The program has also received a national Volunteers in Health Care grant and was selected by the American Association of Public Health Dentistry to present a poster session at its national conference.
The
program also helped host the first Kansas Mission of Mercy event
in Garden City, providing translation services
and more
than 80 volunteers who served as interpreters during the
event and conducted
the exit survey.
A current Health Fund grant of $22,262 supports the program
coordinator’s
position through this year; after the grant ends, the program
will continue with MAM supporting the coordinator’s
salary.
The Lifetime Smiles project was selected from among the 164 projects funded during 2005 by the Health Fund in fulfilling its mission of Healthy Kansans through cooperative and strategic philanthropy guided by Christian principles. The Health Fund concentrates its grant making in three crucial areas: oral health, healthy lifestyles through physical activity and healthier food choices, and access to health care in Kansas.
Representing MAM at the recognition ceremony in Hutchinson were Executive Director Penney Schwab and her husband, Don; Board Chairperson Ray Mann; and Jose Olivas, Ulysses/Johnson/Satanta community developer. Also recognized but unable to attend the ceremony were Cruzie Corpus, Lifetime Smiles Coordinator, and Consuelo Sandoval, Community Developer. The award was presented by Janet Hamilton Newton, Hutchinson, Chairperson of the Health Fund's Board of Trustees.
The Project of the Year award is named in honor of Janet Sevier Gilbreath, the first Chairperson of the United Methodist Health Ministry Fund. The criteria for selection include the attainment of goals, volunteer support, development of community support, and good management and financial practices to assure quality of service delivery.
--30--
More about Lifetime Smiles is available through the MAM website:
http://www.ummam.org/dental.html
More about the Project of the Year award is available through
the Health Fund website:
http://www.healthfund.org/jsg/jsg2005.php