A happy patient and his team of dental providers including Ashely Nichols (RDA), Nga Villanueva (RDH) and incoming Clinical Director, Dr. Shailee Gupta.
The Capital Area Dental Foundation is grateful for the individuals and organizations that support our charitable work in the community. Without your support, we could not connect our dedicated dentists to people in the community who need dental care, but can’t afford it on their own.
One of CADF’s most generous and loyal donors has been the St. David’s Foundation. Led by CEO Earl Maxwell, the St. David’s Foundation has been a title sponsor of the Annual Gala for the past five years and funds the HAAM Dental Program. In addition, the St. David’s Foundation nominated CADF for the Greenlights Nonprofit of the Year award, which we won, in 2014.
Read below what Madge Vasquez, Director of Dental Operations and Lisa Trahan, Director of Communications, had to say about increasing access to dental care in the Austin area and St. David’s longstanding relationship with CADF and our partner, the Capital Area Dental Society (CADS):
- Why has dental health been such a big priority for the St. David’s Foundation?
Our former CEO, Neal Kocurek, was a visionary community leader who was the first to advocate for our work in oral health. In the late 1990s, upon learning that a city-owned mobile van used to provide care to the homeless was underutilized, he invited the City of Austin to partner with St. David’s Foundation to share the first mobile dental van. After sharing the mobile dental van for a few years, the Foundation offered to manage the full operations of the mobile dental van to focus on school children. We began hosting volunteer dentists from CADS as providers. After a few years, we invested in an additional mobile dental unit and started to grow the program to what it is today – a fleet of nine state-of-the-art mobile dental units and 50 full-time paid clinical and operations staff. We believe we are the largest school-based mobile dental program providing charity care in the nation.
- What are your key dental health programs?
St. David’s Foundation Mobile Dental Program has been operating for the last 17 years, and offers free school-based dental screenings, preventive and restorative treatment and a Complex Care Program. Through the Complex Care Program, we partner with private dentists in the community and partially subsidize the cost of complex dental care for our pediatric patients.
We also have a robust Data Analytics Program where we are measuring the impact our programs are having on reducing tooth decay in our region. One of our newest programs is an Oral Health Education program that is training the next generation of youth through a “High-School Health-Tech Train the Trainer Program.” We launched this pilot program in Hays County last school year and have trained dozens of high school health-tech students to deliver oral health education classes to over 2,000 elementary school children in Hays County.
- Besides CADF, what other dental organizations does the St. David’s Foundation support?
St. David’s Foundation is considered the largest oral health funder in the Central Texas region. Our “Healthy Smiles” Program Area provides grant funds to Central Texas non-profits that provide oral health services in our five county region. Some of our “Healthy Smiles” grantees include: Manos de Cristo Dental Clinic, CommuniCare in Kyle, Central South Texas Community Health Center in Luling, the Health Alliance for Austin Musicians, Lone Star Circle of Care Dental Clinic and the Aids Services of Austin Jack Sansing Dental Clinic. In 2015, we granted a total of $2.5 million to area non-profits providing oral health services.
- David’s Foundation has been one of CADF’s earliest and most loyal, generous supporters. How did the relationship come about?
Our partnership with CADF came about through our relationship with the Capital Area Dental Society. The volunteerism, professional guidance and donated dental services of CADS dentists on our mobile dental vans during the early years, was critical to the evolution of our dental program. Capital Area Dental Society dentists, many of whom were involved in the creation of CADF, helped us incubate and grow the the Foundation’s Mobile Dental Program. We continue to consider CADF a key partner today.
- David’s Foundation has been a big part of CADF’s growth and evolution into a viable charitable foundation/nonprofit. You nominated us for the Greenlights Nonprofit of the Year award in 2014. What role do you think CADF plays in the community today? What role could it play tomorrow?
We believe the CADF plays a critical leadership role in highlighting the importance of oral health in the broader Central Texas community and the gaps that continue to exist. The Capital Area Dental Foundation is uniquely positioned to engage private practice dentists and involve them in efforts to increase access to oral health care, especially for the adult population.
We were proud to nominate CADF for the Greenlights award. We did so not only because we believe in your mission, but because we believe that organizationally CADF has been thoughtful about creating strategic community partnerships with other non-profits that are striving to bring oral health services to the populations that need it most.
- Does St. David’s Foundation have any new exciting initiatives or announcements that you’d like to share?
Well, for starters we recently announced our new Clinical Director for the St. David’s Foundation Mobile Dental Program – Dr. Shailee Gupta. Dr. Gupta is a former CADS Executive Board member and has over 12 years of dentistry experience in both private practice and public health dentistry and started working with the Foundation nine years ago. She has been a key team member as we have expanded the Dental Program and we are confident that her years of experience with St. David’s Foundation as a Staff Dentist, Clinical Resource Dentist and Lead Dentist have set a solid foundation for the leadership she will provide as Clinical Director. Dr. Gupta will assume full responsibility of the Clinical Director role upon Dr. Patrice Kistenmacher’s retirement after October 2, 2015. We are grateful for the nine years of service and leadership Dr. Kistenmacher has invested in growing our Mobile Dental Program and its impact in the community.
We are also delighted to announce that St. David’s Foundation is in a strong growth mode. In 2015, we plan to invest about $65 million in grant funds to health-related non-profits in the Central Texas community. By 2017, we expect that number to be about $100 million which will make us one of the top five health foundations in the country. We will be in the same league as some of the leading health foundations in the nation, like the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. We feel a great sense of stewardship and responsibility as we strategically invest these grant funds in our five county region in Central Texas.
