The Michigan Dental Association Foundation recently presented the Paula Tutman’s Children’s Tooth Fairy Foundation with a $5,000 Access to Care grant.

Established in 2006, the Children’s Tooth Fairy Foundation provides preventative, basic and comprehensive dental care to children of need in Wayne, Washtenaw, Macomb and Oakland counties in Michigan in the metro Detroit area. The Tooth Fairy Foundation has created a network of volunteer dentists to provide reduced-cost or Foundation-funded care for extreme cases needing extensive dental treatment or surgery. All services are provided at no cost to children in need. The Foundation also sponsors interactive workshops with dental hygienists; medical care practitioners and nutritionists to teach parents and guardians how to be partners in good dental health with their children.

The Michigan Dental Association Foundation grant will fund a project that will identify Detroit schools that have a greater than 50 percent participation in free and reduced lunch programs. These will be designated as a Children’s Tooth Fairy Foundation school. A partnership with the school nurse will identify, assist, coordinate and track children to ensure dental services are rendered and completed. Dental services for this first phase of the project will be coordinated through the University of Detroit Mercy School of Dentistry. Each at-risk child will be assigned to a dental student to provide treatment.  Transportation to the dental school can be arranged through local collaborative cab companies for free or at a reduced fee. 

The Children’s Tooth Fairy Foundation is committed to getting children into the dental care loop. “We want children of need to have access to a dentist twice a year at no cost to the child or his/her family,” says founder Paula Tutman. “We want to help that child get to the dentist. We will educate parents so they understand the important link between dental hygiene and nutrition to proper health care so they can become a partner in their child’s oral health.”