Kemple Children’s Dental Clinic receives sizable grant
Kemple Memorial Children’s Dental Clinic announced that it has been awarded a substantial grant from the Children’s Dental Health Initiative Fund of The Oregon Community Foundation.
For 2015, year one of three years’ potential support, Kemple Clinic has been awarded $50,000 for its hybrid screening and sealant program, ensuring increased access to high quality dental care for all children in Central Oregon. Kemple Clinic may reapply for $50,000 in year two and $50,000 in year three.
The partners that contributed to this first-year grant for Kemple Clinic include: A-dec, Kaiser Permanente, Meyer Memorial Trust, Northwest Health Foundation, Providence Health and Services and The Oregon Community Foundation.
Jaime Aguirre, OCF representative and owner of Ginger’s Kitchen in Bend, attended Kemple Clinic’s board meeting last week to present the organization with the grant funds.
Suzanne Browning, Kemple Clinic’s Executive Director, stated, “Improving children’s dental health in Central Oregon is critically important, and we are grateful to OCF and its contributors for making such a strong show of support for our work. Their generosity provides us with the funding we need to expand our work and will also help us make the broader community aware of the issue of pediatric oral health in our region.”
OCF established the Children’s Dental Health Initiative Fund in spring of 2014 in response to statistics that showed Oregon has one of the country’s highest rates of childhood dental diseases, many of which are preventable.
OCF has committed to building statewide partnerships to improve children’s dental health and has earmarked up to $2.5 million over the next five years for this specific initiative. In addition to Kemple Clinic, 14 other nonprofits across the state received funding from the initiative in 2015.
About Kemple Memorial Children’s Dental Clinic
Kemple Clinic was founded in 1998 by retired dentist and long-time Bend resident, Dr. H.M. Kemple. Dr. Kemple’s goal as founder was to eliminate pediatric oral disease. To this day, Kemple Clinic strives to support that mission by providing free, high quality, on-site dental treatments to at-risk youth (ages 3-25). We offer these uninsured, underinsured and/or underserved individuals free, full-service dental hygiene appointments at the Kemple Clinic facility. For acute dental needs, Kemple works with over 70 volunteer dentists to deliver urgent and critical dental treatment services to these at-risk individuals. Kemple Clinic also offers comprehensive Screen & Seal Programs: convenient dental screenings, fluoride and sealant applications, and preventative education at community locations throughout Central Oregon. Kemple is the only non-profit in the region that provides these services, because it believes that improving the health and well-being of all children and young adults in the community creates a strong, healthy workforce and a vibrant economy.
About Oregon Community Foundation
Founded in 1973 with an initial contribution of $63,000, Oregon Community Foundation now has an endowment of close to $1.6 billion. OCF manages 1,700 permanent funds and, through these funds, annually awards more than $80 million in grants and scholarships. www.oregoncf.org
