The Tooth Mobile is coming!  We’ll kick off 2013 with our 4^th dental van visit to San Juan Island, Friday, January 25th and Saturday, January 26^th.  Fish For Teeth sponsors this local volunteer staffed clinic to provide urgent and preventative dental care to island residents who have no discretionary income, no dental insurance and no other financial means by which to pay for dental services.

Applications for treatment can be downloaded at fishforteeth.com, or picked up from and dropped off at the following agencies

·      Health Department - 145 Rhone Street,

·      SJI Family Resource Center - Market Street

·      The Mullis Center - 589 Nash Street. 

Applications will be processed the week prior to the clinic by a volunteer dentist whose staff will call the applicants to make appointments.   Please note that the folks at the above intake centers do none of the prioritizing or scheduling.

And don’t forget, aside from direct donations, our only fundraiser is our Fish Taco Sale!  Plan your lunch around us on Friday, the 25^th, in front of Market Place.  Our volunteers will be ready to serve you from 11:00 – 2:00. 

Fish for Teeth is continuing its mission to provide dental care for Islanders who cannot otherwise afford it.  The most recent September 8^th clinic provided dental care for 17 island neighbors, with roughly $6000.00 worth of dental services performed.  To date, in 2012, between 3 clinics on San Juan Island and 1 on Lopez, nearly $50,000 in dental services has been provided.  Not bad for our 1^st year and Lopez Island has one more clinic scheduled for November 30 and December 1^st.  

This special thank-you goes to all who’ve graciously given of themselves to make this happen.  This is an entirely volunteer effort that could not be possible without the generous contributions from individuals, local businesses and organizations.  No one, not the dentists, the hygienists, the dental assistants, the clinic support individuals, or those that work so hard on the taco sales, are paid.  This past dental clinic was staffed by Dr. Michelle Reynolds, Jill Akins, Dr. Mike Horn, Erin Quinn, and Tami Doenges.  As always a special thanks to Dr. Horn for coordinating the dental volunteers. 

Until this past summer, the clinics have been funded entirely by individual donations and our fish taco sales.  Within the past three months, the Rotary Club donated $3,750.00 a portion of their proceeds from their Concours d’Elegance event in August; the American Legion Auxiliary donated $1,000 and the Soroptimists club donated $300, with at least that much coming from additional contributions from individual members.  We can’t thank them enough; their donations will go a long way in providing much needed dental care.

The application intake sources are San Juan County Public Health Department, San Juan and Lopez Family Resource Centers.  Mullis Center provided the space for the dental clinic.  Thanks so much for what you do, over and over.  The Clinic Coordinator was Margaret Johnson, with help from Nancy Best, Kathy Hagn, and Liz Pillow.

Wells Fargo Bank provided the venue to sell our tacos.  Ace Hardware proved invaluable with gracious assistance in a number of ways.  Cynthia Burke offered use of her commercial kitchen for the preparation of the fish taco ingredients and ordered some of the ingredients.  Paul Hopkins donated the use of table, chairs, and pop-up tents.  Molly Finch donated water.  Matt’s Fresh Fish donated the Alaskan rockfish used in the tacos and Pablito’s Taqueria offered his super-delicious salsa at cost.  Steve Feinstein, owner of Mullis Street Storage, recently donated storage space to us in order that we can more easily store and transport the equipment we use for the taco sale.  Jeannine Earnhart was instrumental in designing our new brochure so that we can better describe ourselves to patrons and potential donors.  Jeannine also designed and updates our posters.  Thank you, Jeannine and also thank you to Travis Ayers of Luxel Corp, who donates the printing of the posters.  Of course, thank you to the Fish For Teeth Taco Team who brought it all home, netting $2000.00, enough to pay for our brochures, signs and fund another clinic.  Way to go!

What a wonderful community we live in!  What an amazing community effort we’re involved with.  Thank you so much for being a part in something so much bigger than ourselves!

“Taco Team” members:?Linda Degnan-Cobos, Laurie Duncan, Jean Griffin, Kerwin Johnson, Margaret Johnson, Gabriel Conway, Sharon Lannan, Matt Marinkovich, Maureen Marinkovich, Pauline Mulligan, Chad Peterman, Aimee Urata. 

Fish For Teeth Board:?Matt and Maureen Marinkovich, Dr. Michael Horn, Margaret Johnson, Aimee Urata, Mark Anderson and Tami Doenges.

Fish For Teeth continues to hone it’s tooth-fixing, fish-taco-making talents for San Juan County, with more community support, more contributions from local organizations, and a hot new venue from which to sell it’s fish tacos. The Tooth-Mobile will be staffed with the Friday Harbor volunteer dental team at Mullis Center on Saturday, September 8 and the Taco Team will be selling fish tacos at the Wells Fargo Bank parking lot on the corner of Spring and Argyle on Saturday, September 8, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

photo by Kathleen Ballard

The January 13-14 Dental Van clinic on San Juan Island was a huge success.  The team of local Dental Professionals logged 51 volunteer hours in two days, and completed over $12,900 worth of dental services on 28 individuals.

All this couldn’t have happened without the support of the San Juan County Oral Health Coalition, and the San Juan County Healh and Community Services, who worked together in coordinating this two-day clinic.  The van is offered by Medical Team's International, and Mike and Annie Adams of Nichols Street Suites donated two night's accommodations for the van coordinator (and driver).  And of course, Friday Harbor Marketplace graciously allowed the van to operate in their parking lot, and allowed the pre-screening of patients to be done inside in their employee break area. 

 The Fish for Teeth “Taco Team” served up 230 fish tacos in only 2½ hours of serving; everyone agreed the tacos were delicious.  The rockfish was caught and donated by Matt Marinkovich of Matt's Fresh Fish, the cabbage was donated by Heritage Farm, and the salsa was donated by Pablito's Taqueria (the tacos also had cheese and a squeeze of lime, all wrapped up in a flour tortilla).

Of course, the van isn’t free.  Medical Teams Iternational, who operate the van, charges a fee of $800 per day, for a total of $1,600 for the two-day clinic.  Fish for Teeth paid for the van, but it couldn’t have happened without the support of the San Juan County Oral Health Coalition, and the San Juan County Healh and Community Services, who worked together in coordinating the event.

The opportunity has finally arrived, in the form of a Dental Van sponsored by Medical Teams International, based out of Redmond, WA. We are very excited about this visit and Fish For Teeth is proud to work with this wonderful organization.  Please click here to read the full story from San Juan Update.  Thanks, Ian Byington!

Hello!  We just had a Fish For Teeth Meeting at Key Bank.  (Thank you to all the lovely people had Key Bank for letting us use one of their meeting rooms.)  We discussed the origins of our organization with an interested community member, Dan Levin, who heard about us from one of the dental offices in town.  Mr. Levin owns Dan Levin Originals, jewelry designed, created, and signed by the artist.

We identified a person who has indicated an interest in filling the role between dentists and the treatment plans they provide and myself who will then keep the webpage updated with all the new cases needing attention.  She is busy at the moment with a commitment which is taking some time but we look very much forward to working with her in the near future.  Thanks Tami!

We should have some treatment plans for specific children pretty soon.  We are hoping to start posting that information very soon.  It will be nice to start expressing this great need in our community in such a positive way.

We passed a motion to get started with five initial examinations. The exam with include a cleaning, two x-rays, and a flouride varnish.  The total should be around $150.  We will not be asking for a discount from the providing dentist.  We hope to include a child from Orcas and Lopez because we cover San Juan County and want to be sure to represent the entire county.

We also have a logo design nearing completion.  The designer is Jennifer Rigg of Loea Design.

We decided at our last meeting (May 21, 2010) to spend half of what we have in the bank on initial examinations.  We feel this is the best way to identify a larger portion of our population who need our help.  You will then be able to "Adopt a Mouth," where 100% of your donation goes to fixing that mouth.  You may also choose to make a general donation.  We would like to assure you that we keep administrative costs to a bare minimum.  We want to fix teeth and help other communities do the same with this duplicatable model.  We put your money where someone else's mouth is.