Akron kids get free dental care 40 receive $20,000 in services from rolling clinic that stops in same towns as its PGA partners

The worst part is over for Kendra Johnson.

With a quick tug, Dr. Donald MacKay pulled a bad tooth from the sobbing 7-year-old while dental hygienist Erin Badurina held her hands. A cotton ball settled in where the infected and abscessed tooth had been.

At the Christina's Smile mobile clinic, MacKay and Badurina were among the volunteers who gave free dental care valued at $20,000 to 40 children Friday.

Nervous children filled the four dental chairs in the air-conditioned 48-foot trailer parked at Roadway Corp.'s Gorge Boulevard headquarters. The trailer, one of two owned by the Austin, Texas, charity, is equipped with the latest X-ray and sterilization equipment.

Kendra will need work on five other teeth, but MacKay took care of the most pressing problem, said Diane Stigler, coordinator of Christina's Smile.

Volunteers from South Street Ministries, who brought Kendra and her mother, Ora Johnson, to the clinic, were certain they could find additional help locally.

There's plenty of need in the South Akron neighborhood that South Street Ministries serves, said volunteer Jane Bechtel.

"There's a lot of people that are working at low-paying jobs, working hard for their families, but insurance is just out of their range," she said.

Dr. Richard R. Garza, who founded Christina's Smile in 1989, said affordable or free dental care is a rarity for low-income families.

The charity stops in the same towns as its partners, the PGA Tour and Champions Tour.

It was in Akron on Friday because of the Bridgestone Invitational and earlier in the week it was in Portland, Ore.

Clinics will stop in 22 cities this year, with Roadway providing the transportation and its employees raising funds with golf tournaments, bake sales and raffles, Garza said.

Those efforts raised $320,000, said Terry Gilbert, Roadway's executive vice president of sales and marketing. Christina's Smile employs Garza, Stigler and an office manager, otherwise relying on volunteer dental professionals and donated supplies.

Besides children from South Street Ministries, children from St. Bernard's Hispanic Development Project were at the clinic. They were given T-shirts, toothbrushes and toothpaste after receiving cleanings, fillings, crowns and even root-canal treatments.

Pulling a tooth is a last resort, Garza said, but advanced decay makes it necessary.

Children may be in so much pain from the toothache that they are missing school and not eating well.

"It's hard to function at 100 percent when you're in pain," Garza said.

It's rewarding to halt that pain and get the children "on the road to a much healthier and happier life," he said.

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