Portable Dental Unit - 2016-17 Grant
Skaneateles 2016-17 District Grant ... from Mission of Miracles website
Portable Dental Unit .... Mission of Miracles
Bill Dawson, a member of Christ Church in Manlius, first started assisting the dental team on the 2015 Mission of Miracles. With other volunteers, he helped to sterilize implements, keep records, and distribute toothbrushes and supplies donated by Central New York parishes. A retired electrical engineer, he also discovered he could be especially useful repairing important medical equipment. But when one of the two portable dental kits began to fail, Dawson concluded that it was beyond repair—and a replacement was needed. “To acquire a high quality unit,” Dawson recalled, “the local team in El Salvador would have to import one, which presents significant costs and logistics challenges.” So the Mission of Miracles team began to explore options to replace the broken unit. Dr. Gard Lorey, a Skaneateles dentist and long-time Mission volunteer, ultimately secured funding for the unit with a [District 7150] grant from the Skaneateles Rotary Club.
When volunteers with the fourteenth Mission of Miracles head to El Salvador this weekend, they will be transporting the new portable dental unit, which is valued at several thousand dollars. The unit, which travels in a wheeled case slightly larger than a typical suitcase, includes a vacuum unit for suction, as well as an air compressor and foot pedal controls to drive dental drills. When this year’s Mission wraps up, the local Salvadoran team will continue to use the unit—hopefully for years to come. “When you plant a seed you don’t know what might sprout from it,” says Dawson. “It has worked out well!”