ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - A free dental clinic that has provided services for thousands of Alaskans since it began two years ago is struggling to come up with the funds to keep the operation running.
The third annual Alaska Mission of Mercy will be held in Anchorage at the Dena’ina Civic and Convention Center on April 29-30. But this year’s clinic may be the last, as husband-and-wife dentist team, Julie Robinson and David Nielson, face a lack of donations and volunteer participation, The Alaska Dispatch News reported (https://bit.ly/1quwLar).
Robinson and Nielson, who co-chair the event, put on the first Alaska Mission of Mercy clinic in Anchorage in 2014 and helped other dentists organize a smaller event in Fairbanks last year.
While the previous clinics have been successful, providing $2 million of dental care to nearly 2,500 Alaskans, they worry that they won’t have the resources to keep them going in the future.
“I always thought the second time around (in Anchorage) would be easy,” said Robinson. “The first time we did it we were done with fundraising well in advance, but this time we’re still doing it” closer to the day of the event.
“It has been a bit of a struggle this year,” Nielson said.
The state of Alaska donated $25,000 to Alaska Mission of Mercy in its first year, but has not given any money for the event this year. The mayor’s office is also not giving as much as it did two years ago. Robinson said much of the money this year has been coming from local businesses and friends.
“Some people are giving $20 a month for four months in a row on PayPal because that’s what they can afford,” she said.
Providence Health & Services Alaska provided this year’s largest donation of $50,000.
The event, which costs more than $230,000 to put on, involves recruiting more than 200 dentists to volunteer and bringing in equipment from outside the state.
The dentists perform cleanings, root canals, tooth extractions and oral cancer screenings. Robinson and Nielson are still looking for more dentists as well as other community volunteers to monitor lines and organize paperwork.
Robinson and Nielson said they are planning to hold future events every two years from here on out, but that they are going to need more support in order to prevent them from going away entirely.
“It’s such an exciting event,” Robinson said. “But . somebody in Fairbanks would have to say, ’Yeah, I want to do it.’ If Wasilla wanted to do it, which I think would be great, we’d help. This is just such a beast to put on.”
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Information from: Alaska Dispatch News, https://www.adn.com
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