Our History of Dental Donations

As many of you know, our family has traveled to Costa Rica for the last 20 years as I have looked to expand on  my two passions, dentistry and surfing.  We have distributed over 8,000 toothbrushes and thousands of pens and pencils to school children in small isolated villages in southern Costa Rica.  I have also had the opportunity to enjoy the warm water and beautiful waves.  Intially our children were hesistant to go to schools in a foreign land and give out toothbrushes and pens to children they did not know.  But soon it became one of the highlights of the trips.  I think it is one of the reasons that my son Brandon decided to become a dentist. We have basically adopted one small village of squatters who have suffered because greedy American drug dealers who have pushed them off their land by burning their homes and bribing local politicians to obtain false titles.  I will share their story and how my daughter Julene and I had to confront a squatter leader whose hatred for Americans was so great he tried to stop us from distributing toothbrushes in a future blog. I will simply say that we have done everything we can to counter the image and animosity created by these “ugly Americans.”

The Need for Dental Assistance Continues

Actually the villages are no longer as isolated as they used to be as electricity, roads and televison have come to the area. Unfortunately the need for oral hygiene instruction and toothbrushes has not decreased because with “progress” comes advertising, refined sugars and soft drinks.

Special Thanks to Butler Toothbrushes

This program  would not have been possible without the support of  the Sunstar/ Butler tooth brush company who have generously donated misprinted and unwanted toothbrushes for us to give away.  This is a quality company with a desire to support and improve dental health not just make a profit. We have used all of their products in our office for over 32 years and we would encourage you to use their products also.  Again I would like to thank the Sunstar company for their support and contributions to dentistry.