An alligator may seem like an unlikely role model for immaculate oral hygiene. But many local children receive their first dental cleanings at school, where an alligator, also known as Dr. Joseph Mercardante, teaches them to “open wide” through the Community Health Centers’ (CHC) Brush! Brush! Brush! program.
The program, according to CHC Director of Marketing and Communications Steve Mahr, started in 2010 as a fun way to teach kids lifelong healthy dental habits at early ages. After a year of success with the program, Mahr said it now provides dental education, exams, and cleanings to first through third graders at 14 schools in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties.
“The idea is to catch these kids young while they’re developing habits,” Mahr said. “We try to get this ingrained in them so it’s a lifelong way they care for themselves.”
Brush! Brush! Brush! and the services provided through the program are free of charge to both students and the schools they attend, Mahr said. The program is funded internally by the CHC, a nonprofit specializing in medical care. The CHC, according to Mahr, is the largest provider of Medicare and Medi-Cal services in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties, and a vast majority of its patients use those insurance programs.
Mercardante, a CHC dentist and director of the Brush! Brush! Brush! program, spends much of his time dressed in an alligator costume at elementary schools. Once kids learn to open their mouths wide, like an alligator, they’re able to join the “Alligator Club” and experience a dental exam.
Students learn to “open wide” on the first of three visits conducted through the program. They’re also taught to brush their teeth three times a day—in the morning, after school, and before bed—hence the program’s name. They’re also given a “No Soda Card,” which kids initial for each day they avoid drinking soda.
Mercardante said those cards are put into a raffle, and at a raffle assembly, four children from each school win bicycles, which are all donated to the program by the CHC’s CEO. Last year, Brush! Brush! Brush! gave away 55 bicycles.
On Mercardante’s second and third visits, children have their teeth cleaned and protective sealants placed over their permanent molars, the most expensive teeth to repair. All the action happens in one of the CHC’s mobile clinics, which is outfitted with the necessary equipment to do dental work, including X-ray machines.
“We like to believe that we teach lifelong healthy habits of oral hygiene and nutrition,” Mercardante said.
And it seems to work. Mercardante said parents come to him with all kinds of success stories: One child, he said, hid all the soda in his house in the closet to avoid drinking it. Another attended a birthday party and told everyone who was drinking soda to stop.
“It’s very exciting to hear this feedback,” Mercardante said.
Staff Writer Kasey Bubnash can be reached by email at kbubnash@santamariasun.com.
Health & Beauty 2018
• Skin you’re in | • Dieting trends for 2018 | • Local trainer leads Birthfit classes | • Brush! Brush! Brush! promotes oral hygene for kids
This article appears in Jan 25 – Feb 1, 2018.