The February 13, 2014 Naples Sunset Rotary Meeting was called to order at 6:30pm by President Adoni followed by Invocation and Pledge of Allegiance. Visitng Rotarians included Rotary District 7255 (New York Area) Gov. Gwenn Ramage and her husband. We performed a banner exchange and she discussed the membership challenges they had faced and how they are turning that around with her goals. Our program was Dr. Leo Cullinan, DDS the co-founder of Collier Dental Outreach and was the subject of his program. He is also the Co-Chair of the Florida Mission of Mercy. The Dental Outreach is a very interesting program in that it not only serves the needy, but is also very educational. He setup a cooperative effort with dental hygenic and assistive schools, such as the one at the Lorenzo Walker Institute and St. Mathews House. The students work with Dentists who volunteer their time and utilize the facilities at the school with amazing results. People do not realize how important to appearance teeth are, or more specifically how detrimental to appearance bad teeth can be. These are some of the incredibly challenging cases where teeth have eroded and are missing due to drug use, trauma etc, and the students get the experience of not only working in a real world situation (something that previously they had only really been able to use dummys), but in some of the most extreme cases they may ever see. The patients come out looking incredible, and while its sad to say that our society makes judgements on appearance, it is a reality, and a person with distractingly destroyed teeth is harder to employ. These men and women graduate from St. Mathews house with a new outlook on life. I was amazed at the economic synergies this program creates with the community. It really is a win/win/win.
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