Last month, Kids Smiles celebrated our amazing team of volunteers during National Volunteer Week. Our volunteers come from a wide range of backgrounds and contribute many different skills and talents to help Kids Smiles meet the oral health care needs of children in our community. While many of our volunteers take their experience with them as they further their education or move on to other careers, one former volunteer’s journey brought her back to Kids Smiles.
In 2009, Manali Deshpandi became a Kids Smiles volunteer. With an interest in both dentistry and working with children, she found Kids Smiles was an ideal fit. As an education volunteer Manali delivered fun, hands-on experiments and activities to children of all ages in our Southwest Philadelphia dental center and during outreach visits to the Children’s Crisis Treatment Center. Her favorite part of volunteering was interacting with children and seeing them learn new things from her lessons. She particularly enjoyed an experiment-based lesson on the effects sugary acidic drinks have on teeth.
When Manali left the Kids Smiles volunteer program to pursue her dental career, she took with her the valuable experience she gained working in a high volume dental office and educating children of all ages. In January, we welcomed her return, not as a volunteer, but as a Kids Smiles dentist! Dr. Manali, who now educates while also treating children in Kids Smiles’ West Philadelphia dental center, is a true champion of the Kid Smiles mission.
To see what some of our other volunteers have to say about their experiences visit our facebook page here.
Interested in becoming a Kids Smiles volunteer? To learn more about volunteer opportunities contact us!
Dr. Manali Deshpandi educating children as a Kids Smiles volunteer in 2010.
