Maine Nonprofit Receives Grant to Expand Mobile Dental Care Services

Maine Dental Health Out-Reach Inc (MDHOI), a nonprofit charitable organization based in Winthrop, Maine, recently received a $350,000 grant from the Next Generation Foundation of Maine. The grant will be used to replace the group’s aging dental hygiene van, add a dental chair, and expand oral health care services to pregnant women and children from birth to age 4. Founded in 2003 by Susanne J. LaVallee, RDH, MDHOI has provided more than 6,400 dental appointments to Maine schoolchildren— 98% of whom qualify for the state’s Medicaid program—through two dental hygiene treatment rooms lo cated in an RV. The organization also has referral relationships with restorative dentists, endodontists, oral surgeons, and orthodontists who provide specialty care to patients.

From Dimensions of Dental Hygiene. January 2015;13(1):14,16.