When US troops prepare for deployment, one of the first things the unit does is check every soldier's "dental readiness".  Like most really good ideas, this is simple in concept, but can be very challenging in practice.  Now think about achieving the same goal in Ukraine, where soldiers spend months at a time on the front lines, and pulling a soldier off the line to fix a cavity or a broken tooth exposes her and everyone involved in the movement to Russian drones and artillery.  In addition, the Ukrainian military has critical shortages of everything except invading Russians (and North Koreans, and Iranians, and so on and so forth ad infinitum).

Well, there's an old dental slogan that I just made up: if you can't get your dental patient to the clinic, you have to bring the dental clinic to your patient.

This is the work that is being done by a team of Ukrainian volunteer dentists.  With donations and their own funds, they have purchased and customized a box truck for use as a mobile dental clinic.  With on-board sterilizer, water-maker, suction, drills, anesthesia, xray, dental chairs, and the ability to make and repair dental prosthetics on-site, they travel up and down the front line, providing vitally needed dental care to the soldiers at the front AND to civilians in the heavily bombed and shelled villages where dentists are no longer able to operate from regular offices.  The demand for the mobile dental clinic is so great that the team is trying to field a second mobile clinic - and that is the purpose of this fundraising campaign.  

Of the $26,291 USD fundraising goal, the vast majority is for the vehicle itself.  A 2007 diesel Mercedes Sprinter van is the basic platform, with an asking price of $19,800 USD, and it has already been heavily modified for use as a mobile medical clinic.  An additional essential piece of equipment is a top-quality drone jammer, which will cost another $4600 USD to build in Alaska and deliver to Ukraine.  The remaining $1891 USD are the (surprisingly reasonable) fees charged by the GiveSendGo platform for hosting the campaign and processing donations.  

I would like to close with a thought.  Dental care for soldiers in the field is something very few people think about.  But even a simple dental abscess, if left untreated, can be life-threatening.  Perhaps more importantly, here are a team of dentists who are doing their best to be of service to the soldiers defending their country, and the citizens who are just trying to hang on in their homes and communities.  This isn't glamorous, it's not fancy, and nobody makes big speeches about taking care of teeth.  But it's still REALLY important.  If a dentist has made YOUR life better -- or if you know a dentist who is making people's lives better -- please share and support this campaign.  Thank You!