When Bruce Bergstrom volunteered to help at a dental charity event in 2003, he had no way of knowing where it would lead him.
“My wife, Millie, is a dental hygienist at the Flint Hills Health Center in Topeka,” Bergstrom said. “She got me to volunteer for a Mission of Mercy event in Garden City back in 2003. When we pulled in there to the fair grounds it was snowing outside, and very cold. You would not believe the line of people outside.
“A Hispanic boy ran by, and he had no shoes on. When I asked him where they were, his mother told me he didn’t have any. The boy held up his fingers and said, ‘Five socks.”
At the Garden City event, Bergstrom was assigned to help with crowd control. Five years later, he is executive director of America’s Dentists Care Foundation’s Missions of Mercy.
The purpose of the organization is to provide free dental care for those who don’t have insurance or are underinsured and can’t afford dental care. The charity events attract multitudes of people.
The America’s Dentists Care Foundation was established this year to enable states to organize their own Mission of Mercy events. The charity events were started in Virginia, then moved to Texas, then Kansas, and more states are organizing their own. There have been several events in Kansas since the first one was organized in Garden City in 2003.
In all, Kansas Mission of Mercy has served almost 15,000 people in the state and has provided more than $6 million in free dental care. The next event will be held in Manhattan at the National Guard Armory on Feb. 20 and 21.
Bergstrom retired in 2004 from the management team at Wolf Creek Nuclear Operating Corporation. He recently started working as an adjunct instructor of business and industry for Flint Hills Technical College.
He tries to attend as many of the events as he can, in Kansas and out of state, and he always comes back with stories to tell.
“We were at one in Arkansas, and there were 365 people lined up in the rain at 4:20 a.m.,” Bergstrom said. “That event served more than 2,000 people. Everywhere we go, it’s like that.
“It’s unbelievable to me that there’s so much demand in this country for something as simple as dental care,” Bergstrom said. “The purpose is that we take everyone. It doesn’t matter who they are.”
To date, there are nine states participating in the program, with Wisconsin planning its first Mission of Mercy. Bergstrom spent a few days last week in Waterloo, Iowa, helping with that state’s first event. He said that event ended up serving 1,200 people.
He came back from Iowa with another story to tell.
He had gone across the street for a sandwich and was coming back when he saw a young woman sitting outside, crying. “She was probably in her early 30s,” he said. “I asked her why she was crying and she told me her story.”
The woman had just finished her initial round of dental care at the event, and was waiting for more work to be done. She told Bergstrom that she had needed $9,000 of dental work, and didn’t know how she was going to afford it. She and her husband had decided to sell their house and her wedding ring so she could fix her teeth; the couple would then have to start all over.
“She told me that one day she lost it,” Bergstrom said. “She started crying and praying for someone or something to help her. Then she heard about Missions of Mercy.”
Bergstrom got her number, and said he was getting ready to call to check up on her.
One goal of the America’s Dentists Care Foundation is for the program eventually to operate in every state.
“We’ve got more interest and participation and it’s growing every day,” Bergstrom said.
The events depend on an army of volunteers, from dentists and hygienists who offer their services free of charge to community volunteers who bring refreshments to patients as they wait to be served.
“We usually expect about 500 to 700 volunteers for these events,” Bergstrom said.
Bergstrom would like to have more events in Kansas, and hinted at the possibility of holding one in Emporia.
“We’ve got to have a place big enough to hold an event, and we need all the volunteers we can get,” he said.
In the end, it’s not just the work Bergstrom loves — it’s the people he meets and the stories he comes away with.
“I can’t explain in words the love that comes out of there,” Bergstrom said. “The magic is indescribable. We’ve done a lot of good for these people.”