Free Catholic-sponsored dental clinics show ‘image of God in everyone’ by offering less fortunate access to care

DETROIT — Every second Friday of the month, Tom Larabell walks into the basement of St. Leo Church on Grand River in Detroit, ready to meet smiling faces.

The faces change week to week; there isn’t a whole lot of follow-up at the Malta Dental Clinic at St. Leo, but the smiles are grateful.

People wait patiently, chatting with their fellow Detroiters as volunteer dentists come to see people who normally don’t visit the dentist.

“Most of the people who walk in here have no insurance, or care,” said Larabell, the newly appointed director of the Malta Dental Clinic, which has been operating at St. Leo for 12 years and just last year marked its 10,000th visit.

“Doctors often say that certain people can’t be taken care of, they can’t be healed, because their teeth are so bad,” Larabell said. “All that poison is going into their system, so we decided to open the dental clinic.”

The dental clinic meets twice a month, from 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., providing free service to Detroit residents, thanks in part to volunteer dentists such as Dr. Tom Kolderman.

“I felt I wanted to give something back, I’ve been practicing for 40 years and recently retired,” Dr. Kolderman said. “I read in The Michigan Catholic the position was available, and I believe you have the obligation to give something back.”

Dr. Kolderman said most of the patients he sees haven’t been to a dentist in years, meaning most of the procedures involve extractions, fillings and creating dentures.

“The help people receive here is critical,” Dr. Kolderman said. “People here are really respectful, and they appreciate everything we do for them. Sometimes in private practice, it’s not that way and people just don’t have the same attitude when they visit the dentist.”

Life-changing smiles

Across town on Gratiot, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul sponsors a free dental clinic open three days a week from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., where local dentists and dental students from surrounding colleges volunteer.

The walk-in clinic opened in 2010, and more than 40 dental professionals from the Metro area volunteer their time on a rotating basis.

“We see patients in the order they come in, so it’s a little odd they are waiting, but we don’t want to waste our volunteers’ time,” said Nancy Harmon, dental director at the St. Vincent de Paul Dental Clinic. “We receive money from Blue Cross Blue Shield and Delta Dental, the Dresner Foundation and from Patterson, another dental company, along with individual donations from Vincentians that keep this ministry running.”

Harmon said the clinic does charge a registration and lab fee, but will waive it if a person can’t pay. The clinic has an insurance navigator on staff who helps patients make sure they are signed up for Medicaid, if eligible, and other insurance benefits they can receive.

“A lot of people I see are missing teeth, but they need to smile to find a job, to live a better life,” said Dr. Arthur Post, a St. Clair Shores dentist who’s been volunteering at St. Vincent de Paul for five years.

“A lot of the focus here is on restoring people so they can smile,” Dr. Post said. “The biggest change you see, they will smile more. When you volunteer at a place like this, you don’t see a lot of follow up, but you see smiles, you see happy people.”



The St. Vincent de Paul clinic has a wall of pictures of people who’ve been helped by the clinic. Harmon said that for many who walk through the clinic’s doors, the service they receive is life-altering.

“We had a patient who was missing her front teeth, who had a job working at the Home Depot in the back of the store,” Harmon said. “But she’s not a backroom storage person, she’s a front-of-the-store person. She wanted to be greeting people, but she couldn’t say ‘find,’ because she was missing her front teeth.

“We made her a partial denture, and she started making a ‘f-, f-,f-‘ sound, saying she’s waiting until she can say, ‘Can I help you find this?’ With her front teeth, she was able to get a position at the front of the store, meaning a $2-an-hour raise. That was enough to change her life.”

The life-altering work of the St. Vincent de Paul Dental Clinic is meant to exemplify the Vincentian value of seeing Christ in everybody, according to Harmon.

Honoring the image of God

In Oakland County, St. Joseph Mercy Hospital sponsors the Mercy Dental Center, a state-of-the-art teaching facility that allows dental residents to gain experience working with patients and learn from volunteering dentists in the community.

Established in 2011, the Mercy Dental Center has two residents, two medical staff and two dental assistants, in addition to a rotation of dentists who volunteer their time.

“There is a large population with no access to dental care, because of a barrier, be it financial, amputation or special needs,” said Dr. Craig Spangler of the Mercy Dental Center. “When you think of dentistry, think of infections in the mouth, which lead to the heart, then the respiratory system, the chronic inflammation that comes from a person’s inability to eat and chew.”



The Mercy Dental Center has three treatments rooms, but is set to expand thanks in part to a $250,000 grant.

The center sees about 20 people a day, operating from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, but up to 300 people are on a six-month waiting list to get in.

“We have no marketing, it’s mostly done by word of mouth,” Dr. Nisha Yusaf said. “We’ve met with OBG-YNs who said there is a correlation with dental work needed in women who have problems with giving birth. For many of the woman we see, this is probably the first time they’ve seen a dentist.”

Bev Beltramo, the chief mission officer for St. Joseph Mercy Oakland, said the work of the clinic is vital to the overall mission of Mercy Health System.

“We did a community health assessment in the area, and one area we felt we needed to do more was dental,” Beltramo said. “As a faith-based institution, we’re committed to addressing the need for dental centers. This is in line with our core values, seeking that reverence for others, honoring the image of God in every person.”

‘Titans for Teeth’

Back in Wayne County, students and professors with the University of Detroit Mercy dental program are taking dental care to the patient, with its one-of-a-kind “Titans for Teeth” bus.

The Titans for Teeth bus started operation in the fall of 2015 and has visited seven schools in Wayne County, according to Dr. Divesh Byrappagari, chair of the University of Detroit Mercy dental program.

The 38-foot mobile dental coach features an eight-chair dental clinic where adults and elementary students around Wayne County receive free dental care.

“We go to schools, signing up students with consent forms from parents, asking if they would like their child to receive dental services,” Dr. Byrappagari said. “We stay at a school or location, providing exams, emergency care, restorative care like fillings and extractions. We stay until every child is serviced, and then we go back six months later for recalls.”

Dr. Byrappagari said the mobile dental clinic is part of Detroit Mercy’s dental curriculum, offering students a chance to work with the less fortunate.

“The program trains the next generation of dentists, giving them a much different experience than what they would receive in a normal dentist’s office,” Dr. Byrappagari said. “This forms a base for our students in understanding the importance of community health. Sometimes, this is the first time they see the amount of suffering that’s out there, and they see the amount of good they can do by volunteering at the free clinics.”