Community Involvement in Searcy Is Important to Our Team

Dr. Baker: We have a lot of community little programs that pop up throughout the years, and the staff participates in those things, but probably one of the biggest things we do is ARMOM, and it's called Arkansas Mission of Mercy, and it's through the dental state association. We travel all over the state once a year, and it'll be dentistry done for two days free of charge.

It's really, really humbling that people will go out sometimes setting up 10 hours before we even show up to get their dental work done. We do extractions. We do fillings. We make partials and dentures. This year, it's gonna be in Springdale. Last year, it was in Conway, and the year before that, it was in Jonesboro. It's been going probably about 10 or 11 years now. I've probably been to eight or nine of them, but anyway, it's real humbling.

We just go. We take the staff. We donate our time. We donate all of our services, and there will probably be a couple hundred dentists there working. Typically, we'll see 1,500 patients a day, 1,200 patients a day, and so it's a tremendous way to give back to those who can't afford dental care who may not have Medicaid, who may not have dental insurance, who may not have a job, but they come and get whatever they need done as long as it's within the parameters of the ARMOM rules, so to speak. We take care of those people and it's awesome.
To see people cry because they can smile again, to see people happy because they didn't have to spend the money. They might have to be a half a day off of work or something else or give up a Saturday, but man, that's life-changing. It's real humbling to get to do that.