Smiles for a Lifetime

The Surgeon General ranks oral healthcare as the number one most common chronic disease in children, five times greater than asthma. It is estimated that one-third of the children in South Carolina are in need of dental care; in the areas where CommuniCare serves, more than 75% of the children lack access to oral healthcare. For these children, the lack of oral healthcare and subsequent pain it creates impacts their ability to learn.

Smiles, a division of CommuniCare, offers children from limited-income families of South Carolina a dignified channel to access timely, effective, and quality oral healthcare services. The program operates four school-based centers in Allendale, Dillon, Manning, and Summerton, as well as a weekend center in Charleston that serves the tri-county area.

Using the CommuniCare model, Smiles has been supported by corporate partnerships and the creative use of existing resources to offer dental services that otherwise would be cost-prohibitive.

August 2006 - May 2007

• 3,549 students received dental services in the four Smiles school-based Smiles centers.
• 416 children served in the Charleston Smiles center January - July 2007 (weekends only).

CommuniCare's Smiles initiative received the state Health Alliances Vanguard Award for the most innovative new healthcare program in 1999 by the South Carolina Hospital Association.

Georgia Famuliner, RN
Smiles for a Lifetime Operations Director

Mailing Address:
Smiles
PO Box 221
Allendale, SC 29810
Phone: 803.584.4803
gfamuliner@communicare.us