Free dental clinic for first responders

A dental organization is showing its appreciation to first responders today with their first ever free dental care clinic for police, firefighters, and emergency responders. This is happening right now at White Smiles Dentistry in Albertville. And joining us now live from that clinic, Drs. Dustin White and Abby Askegaard. Thanks for joining us. Good to see you both. Thank you. yeah thank you uh first off this is a free clinic for first responders tell us what prompted this idea um well it's um been something we've been doing um for veterans for the last 11 years since we've opened and um i just got the idea one of my best friends was in the military and so um you know we could see that there were some issues with getting into the VA and um so yeah it kind of started with that. Just the idea to give back for people that have given so much. And then about, you know, we really wanted to expand it into something where we can serve even more people in our community. Jobs that are really difficult. And I mean, you know, my wife's a nurse. I know how hard some of those jobs are. And then just giving back to the firefighters, police officers, and everybody that helps us out so much. So it just, I mean, we're very fortunate and we have a really good staff and really good team. And it's just something really nice that we can do to give back. Well, I'd say so. And Abby, how's the response been so far? The day has been great. It's so great to get to talk to these patients, hear about their work, but also their families, their lives. I'm happy that they can take this day to so we can focus on them, give back to them, and give them some care and get them back to health. So the event itself, I imagine it started this morning, and it's going until later today. Tell us about the details and specifics, and what kind, are we doing cleanings, what type of things are we doing? Well, so far today, I've done a few full mouth extractions, some pre-dentures, some sedation, some wisdom teeth some root canals and crowns uh i think i got an implant coming up later so um pretty much everything uh you know the full gamut uh yeah yeah i mean you know most people don't like the dentist but that's why you know it's nice to be able to you know either give some laughing gas or sedation it makes it much more enjoyable yeah that's you know that's great and And you touched on this first off there, doctor. Tell us about the clinic you do for the veterans. We love this idea. And how long you've been doing that and when that will be coming up. Yeah, so we've been doing that 11 years now. And it will be coming up next month. So if you're a veteran that needs really any kind of dental work, we're going to be going ahead. I should know which day. but uh give our office a call sure um we'll be able to get you in for a consult um and yeah hopefully we can fix if something's bothering you or you're in pain give us a call as soon as we can um our main thing is just to make sure that you're pain-free and then if we can give you a beautiful smile yeah that's great and dr abby i know you've been doing this for a while too what what is the biggest uh takeaway or the the thing you get out of this event like today and with the veterans Just helping our community. You know, Albertville is a great community. We have so many people who are volunteering and working to make this place better. And we want to do the same, really. And so finding that time to give back to those who have served and given us so much is really important to us at White Smiles. And is it pretty much all full for today? If anyone's watching right now and says, you know, I could really use something here. As a first responder, are we all Well, the slot's pretty much full today. We are full today, but we plan to make this an annual event. So please call our office this coming summer. We'd love to get them in next year so that we can help others. Excellent. That's Dr. Dustin White and Dr. Abigail Askegaard. Thanks for joining us today, and good on you on what you're doing there at your White Smiles Dentistry in Albertville. Thank you. Thank you so much. You bet.