'We want to help reduce health care disparities'

Meharry Medical College School of Dentistry hosts Give Kids A Smile kickoff

Malik Walters, D.D.S., returned to his alma mater Feb. 7. It wasn’t just to reunite with old classmates or revisit the town where he once lived. It was to volunteer at the ADA Foundation’s Give Kids A Smile kickoff event at Meharry Medical College School of Dentistry. 

Dr. Walters served several years ago as the Give Kids A Smile program coordinator at Meharry and although he graduated in 2024 and no longer lives in the area, he flew back to his former school just to attend this year’s event as a volunteer dentist.  

The annual access to care program, which kicked off with a national celebration on Feb. 7 in Nashville, Tennessee, at Meharry, is one that Dr. Walters didn’t want to miss — not only because he wanted to give back to his school, but also because he wanted to serve the public. Meharry is located in an area where many people have limited access to dental care, and Dr. Walters desired to give back to a community that gave so much to him. 

“Meharry is a very special institution that really does foster a very strong sense of family and community. A perfect example is me having a Friday off and choosing to spend my day off flying to Nashville to give back to Meharry. It speaks to how much I appreciate the school and what they’ve done for me,” he said. “Give Kids A Smile is a very important event that has benefited many children in the Nashville metropolitan community over the years.” 

Since launching nationally in 2003, the ADA Foundation’s Give Kids A Smile program has provided free oral health education and services to more than 9.5 million underserved children in the U.S. In 2025, nearly 1,100 Give Kids A Smile events are scheduled to take place throughout the year across the country, and it is estimated that approximately 325,500 underserved children will receive free oral health education, screenings and preventive and restorative services like cleanings, sealants and fillings. These services will be provided by approximately 25,000 dentists and dental team members who volunteer at local events.

“We want to help reduce health care disparities. We want children to have a fun-filled pleasant experience when they come to the dental office. We want to ensure that children know that great smiles start early. And we are just elated – we’ve been planning, planning, planning for months,” said Julie Gray, D.D.S., associate dean of external affairs at Meharry. 

The planning has paid off. This year’s kickoff event alone provided approximately 300 Nashville-area children with screenings, treatment and oral health education. The event’s theme was inspired by the popular animated film “Inside Out” and featured posters, fun T-shirts and toy teeth that represented the different “emotion” characters depicted in the movie. 

Mirissa Price, D.D.S., director of the school’s pediatric dental residency program and national ADA Foundation Give Kids A Smile ambassador, said the idea behind this theme is to help children feel more comfortable with visiting the dentist’s office. 

“We want to make sure that when the kids come into the building, it’s not this big, scary clinic, but something familiar,” she said. “They can really immerse themselves in more of a familiar [movie] rather than coming to an unfamiliar dental school.”

Dr. Price said many of the kids who attend Give Kids A Smile events have never been to the dentist before, making it that much more important to provide as relaxed an experience as possible. 

“When you see just one child walk away saying, ‘I want to come back to the dentist,’ or you see that one child who comes back to the dentist or makes us our dental home and becomes more confident because they went through this experience, it’s all worth it,” she said. 

During the event, children received cleanings, sealants, fluoride treatments, extractions, restorative treatments, and orthodontic consults from volunteer dentists, orthodontists and dental students. National program sponsors Henry Schein, Inc., and Colgate-Palmolive Company donated essential oral health care products to the program. There were also interactive stations with different activities, from teaching children how to properly brush and floss to teaching them about how to make healthy choices through the Colgate Bright Smiles, Bright Futures program. 

According to Cherae Farmer-Dixon, D.D.S., dean of Meharry Medical College School of Dentistry, it was also crucial to set up a mechanism for those who needed more extensive work whereby staff could follow up to make sure the child either returned to Meharry for the dental work or to direct them to a dentist nearby. 

“We didn’t just want to do screenings and say, ‘Oh, you’ve got cavities,’” Dr. Dixon said. “We want to close the loop so that if they don’t have a dental home, we are creating an avenue where they can have one for continued care, whether that’s with us or whether we’re connecting them with dentists in the community.”

For Tamera Thomas, dental student and member of the Meharry Give Kids A Smile planning committee, the day was personally significant. A very inquisitive child, Ms. Thomas would constantly ask her dentist what she was doing and what tools she was using. No question was a dumb question, she said, which made visiting the dentist feel like a field trip. 

As a fourth-year dental student at Meharry, Ms. Thomas now hopes to help children feel the same way. With events like Give Kids A Smile, she aims to elucidate the ins and outs of how dentistry works, answer any questions kids may have, and maybe even inspire some of them to pursue a career in dentistry themselves. 

“I see some of my patients who are just as inquisitive as me. Or maybe [I] just have to spend more time with the kids to let them know what it is I’m doing, whether I show them in my hand what I’m doing or I give them a demonstration — anything that will help them understand they’re not here to be in pain, they’re here to get out of pain,” she said. 

Dr. Walters shared his excitement about getting to apply his newfound knowledge as a dental resident to the event. Attending the Give Kids A Smile kickoff wasn’t a question, he said, due to how profound an effect he knew it would have on the Nashville community. 

“Having this event that is accessible and open to the community, it makes a strong impact on, yes, their oral health, but also an impact on providing them with a really good and memorable experience at the dentist,” he said. 

The ADA Foundation Give Kids A Smile program is celebrated nationally in February during National Children’s Dental Health Month, with events also taking place throughout the year. 

Give Kids A Smile supporters have an opportunity in quarter 1 of 2025 to Gift Kids A Smile. The ADA Foundation is accepting donations to help more children in need and invest in the future of oral health care. Donators can allocate 25% of the gift to a U.S. dental school of their choice. Funds raised will support the dental school's Give Kids A Smile event or similar children's oral health outreach initiatives.

To donate, visit this webpage. For more information, visit ADAFoundation.org/GKAS.