Business

Premier Orthodontics provided care for 20 families in need

Jun 27, 2015

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Premier Orthodontics has teamed up with Smiles Changes Lives and provided orthodontics care to 20 local families in need.

Smiles Change Lives (SCL) is an organization that provides low income families with access to orthodontics treatment for their children. Locally, SCL never had much of a presence, and families were on a waiting list for years before they could be seen. At least that was the case until Premier Orthodontics partnered with SCL and provided treatment for all the families in waiting.

“There was a waiting list of 20 [families], and we said we would take them all for 2015,” Premier Orthodontics office manager Charlotte Barajas said.

Smiles Change Lives has been helping underprivileged children since 1997. They started in Kansas City, Missouri as the Virginia Brown Community Orthodontic Partnership, and have grown to be the nation’s leader in providing access to orthodontic care for qualified children. Since their creation, Smiles Change Lives has helped over 6,000 children get the dental care they need and otherwise wouldn’t have been able to afford.

According to a statement released by Premier Orthodontics, prior to the company becoming a provider to Smiles Change Lives, there was a three-year waiting list for children to receive treatment in the Phoenix area. Doctors Dustin and Tyler Coles took on all the patients to eliminate the waiting list for 2015. When Smiles Change Lives Director Alexis Barclay heard about what Premier Orthodontics had done, he sent both doctors an appreciative email.

“When I first opened your email I started tearing up,” Barclay said. “I have been with Smiles for over two years now and have been in charge of the Arizona area. The wait time for your area has always been around 36 months and it is such a long wait for our families and the children that have been constantly in pain and bullied waiting for us to help them. Words cannot describe how thankful I am for your joining our program and eliminating this wait in the Phoenix area. Thank you.”