People ages 18 and older had the chance to get free dental work done at the John Fornetti Dental Center in Iron Mountain on Saturday.
This was the John Fornetti Dental Center’s 19th annual Dentistry from the Heart event. People braved the cold and snow to secure a spot in line for the event.
John Fornetti Dental Center Owner Dr. John Fornetti said the first person in line showed up at 3 a.m.
“There’s a tremendous amount of need that we’ve been seeing,” Dr. Fornetti said. “Infections and broken teeth and such. So, people have been waiting and waiting for this event so that they could come and get their needs taken care of.”
The dental center offered cleanings, fillings and extractions to patients at no charge on Saturday. Registered Dental Hygienist Lissa Twardzik said she noticed more people coming in for preventative care this year.
“I’ve noticed the last couple years doing this, since we’ve been doing it for so long, we’ve helped so many people in the community, it’s a lot more preventive dentistry now,” Twardzik said. “So, I see a lot more people cleaning teeth than maybe in the past that were just coming in to get fillings.”
Gwendolyn McKay came in for tooth pain on Saturday. She said she will need to come back for an X-Ray but was able to get a free cleaning.
“They have everything so well organized,” McKay said. “It was easy to understand what steps needed to be taken and coffee and soup and people from the community were here that I got to talk to, so it was awesome.”
Dr. Fornetti would like to thank the roughly 50 volunteers who made Dentistry from the Heart possible.
In total, 93 people were served on Saturday with 116 procedures being performed within 7 hours. The treatment donated totaled just over $49,000.
By Dan Groeneveld – Uppermichiganssource
