Checking up for Saturday, October 2, 2004
Lynchburg News and Advance
Saturday, October 2, 2004Thumbs up to the dental program at the Free Clinic of Central Virginia. The program, which uses dental students from Virginia Commonwealth University School of Dentistry, is one of those rare projects that works two ways - benefiting the student interns and area dental patients who need their services. Since the program began more than a year ago, senior dental students have spent about 2,900 hours on some 1,500 appointments at the downtown clinic, according to data compiled by Bob Barlow, Free Clinic executive director.
The clinic has a fully equipped dental office where the students work with mentors in two-week rotations.
Dr. Thomas R. Golden of Madison Heights is one of the 22 mentors who put in more than 700 hours working with the students in the past year. Golden said the work of the students “serves the needs” of the patients. “These are nice young people and are well trained,” he said. Working with them, he added, “brings back your enthusiasm.”
The Free Clinic serves the working poor - people who earn too much for Medicaid, but whose jobs don’t include health benefits or who can’t afford regular health care. Dental care, it turns out, has become an important addition to the services provided at the clinic.
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Thumbs up to Hunters for the Hungry, a nonprofit group that distributes donated venison to area food banks and charities to help feed the hungry. The group hopes to distribute 325,000 pounds of deer meet this season, said Laura Newell-Furniss, director of the effort. That translates into 1.3 million 4-ounce servings of low-fat, high protein meat.
While it doesn’t cost hunters anything to donate the meat, it costs the program about $35 to have each deer professionally processed. Processing plants throughout the state cut, wrap and freeze the deer meat for distribution.
Newell-Furniss hopes to raise $227,500 through donations to offset the processing costs.
Robert Peak, owner of Peak’s Slaughter House on Campbell Highway, said the program feeds many people who would otherwise go hungry. “It’s just a big help for people that need food,” he said.
Last year, the program distributed 308,274 pounds of venison to the hungry.
Tax-deductible contributions may be mailed to Hunters for the Hungry, P.O. Box 304, Big Island, Va. 24526.
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