USU students give smiles for Christmas
Five members of Utah State University’s Dental Club spent part of their Christmas break a little differently this year.
As part of a group of 60 volunteers that traveled to Ecuador this past year. They learned, practiced and improved upon their basic dental skills as volunteers for Charity Anywhere.
According to its Web site, www.charityanywhere.org, Charity Anywhere is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing service to anyone, anywhere with the motto “Be good and do good.”
Jacob Bingham, Joseph Gedge, Brian Dansie, Jordan Humbert and Joseph Winward all participated in the dental expedition to Ecuador that went from Dec. 26-Jan. 5.
“Jake and Joseph Winward heard about Charity Anywhere and what they did. The idea just went from there,” said Brian Dansie, a junior majoring in liberal arts and sciences.
“Going down to Ecuador was just something I had wanted to do. I finally made the decision after talking to a student from BYU who had gone last year, but even after that, I didn’t really know what we getting ourselves into,” said Jake Bingham, a junior in practice management.
They spent most of their time in Quito and Ortevalo, Ecuador, working out of a dental clinic set up by Charity Anywhere.
“Volunteering in Ecuador was great. We got more hands-on experience in dentistry than we ever expected,” said Brian Dansie, “The five of us that went down, by the end of our time there, had extracted teeth, done injections, drilled cavities, filled cavities and Jordan even stitched up after an oral surgery – it was pretty cool.”
Dansie said the basic dental work lasted only the last five days or so, with the first few days spent observing and helping out wherever possible.
“There were so many people that needed and wanted our help that the dentists let us do some of the basic stuff ourselves,” he said. “Of course we were always supervised by practicing dentists.”
Dansie said three dentists from the United States and three from Ecuador also volunteered and helped answer the volunteers’ questions.
“We didn’t do any root canals or oral surgery, but some of us did whole cavities from drilling to filling in the teeth, so that was fun,” he said.
Joseph Gedge, a senior majoring in business administration, said, “A lot of the people had never had dental work done before and for most of them, it was the first and only time they will get dental work done.”
“It was tough sometimes to because it was just a free clinic and we had to turn back people everyday even though we were working on over a hundred people a day in the dental clinic,” Gedge said. “Some people would come to the dental clinic at 8 o’clock at night and wait all night just so they could get in.”
But it wasn’t all dental work for the students, Dansie said, since they also took school supplies, toys and clothes to children in a small village outside of Ortevalo.
“The best part was seeing the people get something that they otherwise wouldn’t get. It was a great hands-on experience that you can’t get in the U.S.,” he said. “It was far better than any vacation that I have been on because you care helping people and get see a beautiful country while you’re at it.”
Charity Anywhere is best known for its dental and medical expeditions to Ecuador, Mexico, Galapagos Islands, Haiti and Nicaragua.
nealmsnow@cc.usu.edu
Joe Winward giving an injection. (Courtesy Joseph Winward)