Chair Diampo Lim with the PFA Delegation being welcomed at the school. Note the special PFA shirts our volunteers are wearing.

Fellows Norma Tiu and Antonio Baldemor instructing the students on dental hygiene.

Fellow Leonor Lago monitoring the first-graders brushing.

At 4 AM on January 11, 2004, the Philippine Fellows met at the Achacoso Dental to begin their trek to Poong Bato, Botolan Zambales, to initiate their Dental Outreach Program. They arrived 5 hours later to be welcomed by the Achacoso family at their ancestral home for a breakfast meeting before the program began at the Loob Bunga Elementary School in Poong Bato.

How important was this self-sacrificing effort on the part of the Section Fellows? How often does a dentist get down into this rural area?

The entire village turned out to welcome them! Over 700 families flooded the school area to welcome them and receive bags of groceries, slippers, toothbrushes, and toothpaste. Some of the Fellows distributed these bags, while others went into the classrooms to conduct oral health education instructions to the students. This was an audacious beginning that had a great impact on the community, educated the students, and instilled great pride in the Fellows for their participation.

Though this was a day's time commitment on the part of the approximately 20 dentists and their families, they left this initial project with a feeling of great self-worth, dedication, and Fellowship camaraderie. It was not difficult to enlist volunteers for their next foray.

In 2005, the Section selected Infanta Quezon for their next Outreach ProgramProject, an area that had been devastated by a typhoon and was still recovering. The GMA Kapuso Foundation, headed by Ms. Mel Tiangco, was the recipient of a 50,000 peso grant by the Philippine Section presented by Section Chair Diampo J. Lim with Fellows Antonio Baldemor, Norma Tui, and Rosemary Youngchan. The Ceremony was held on April 20, 2005 during a GMA Kapuso function at the Gotesco Mall Commonwealth. The grant went a long way to help the devastated people of Infanta Quezon.

The 2006 Outreach Program again focused on children's dental health education. This time the expedition served Paete, Laguna--home of world-renowned Filipino woodcarvers and Fellow Antonio Baldemor. Over 500 schoolchildren of the Paete Central, Ibaba, and Quinala Elementary Schools were served.

Upon arriving there, town officials, lead by Mayor Cadayona and Vice Mayor Bagabaldo, along with most of the village residents, were on hand to welcome our PFA Fellows. School representatives and DepEd officials were on hand to give them a warm reception. As before, the schools were divided into sections in which PFA volunteers gave oral hygiene instructions and assisted the students in practicing their brushing.

The vast community support for their efforts was overwhelming and well received by the PFA volunteers. This outpouring from the residents indicates that they are appreciative of this effort and will endeavor to have the education continue to be used by the children, with adults leading by example. The effort by the Philippine Fellows emphasized the importance of something so simple, yet so important, as brushing one's teeth. When the audience is so receptive as in Paete, the lesson is well learned for a long time.

This episode in one international Section's endeavor to be proactive outside the dental office is but one example of what can be done in every section. Creating a program of any dimension with volunteer PFA members and their families is easily performed and leaves a lasting impression on those whom it serves, as well as on the participants. If this type of situation were not fun and self-rewarding, no one would be volunteering year after year.