Over the years our Foundation has supported the various dental museums as a means to carry out their mission to educate dental professionals and the public on the evolution and history of the dental profession.

We have supported the Samuel D. Harris National Museum of Dentistry (NMD) in Baltimore, our U.S. site for the PFA International Hall of Fame until the Wall of Fame became too large to handle our display and necessary supplemental information. The venue is now being displayed at the ADA Library located at their Chicago headquarters. However our support for the National Museum and all the great displays they host is still in effect. This year the NMD has been honored by receiving the 2008 Shils Award for being an outstanding transformational leader in demonstrating a commitment to promoting public oral health awareness in their innovative and entertaining educational programs for children.

The Dr. Edward B. Shils Entrepreneurial Education Fund presented their award last June. Rosemary Fetter, NMD executive director, expressed her gratitude for the recognition. The Edward Shils Fund was founded in 2002 to recognize and honor outstanding initiatives that impact on oral health or that provide educational opportunities in dentistry. It is under the administration of the ADA Foundation. This year's award recipients other than the National Museum were DENTSPLY International, Dr. Robert Klaus, and Dr. Cherilyn Sheets.

Their online MouthPower program is an entertaining educational Web experience developed in partnership with the ADA. The site is in English and in Spanish with some 250,000 visitors to date.

Their Traveling Exhibition Program to other museums and U.S. and Canadian venues has reached a national audience of some 2 million people.

The Journal of the History of Dentistry (Vol. 53, #3, November 2005) printed an article by our Secretary General Richard Kozal entitled "Pierre Fauchard Academy Museum of Dental History" which highlights the dental museum so carefully constructed and furnished by our Secretary General at the Community College of Southern Nevada. The visitors to this Las Vegas site have long expressed their gratitude for fine work in its displays and dental history lesson for the public.