Employees in Thailand supported the Chulalongkorn foundation’s annual roadshow. Each year, the roadshow brings together roughly 150 dentists to provide dental care to 5,000 patients living in particularly rural areas. Dentsply Sirona’s assistance includes product donations such as X-smartPlus, files, Celtra Duo, and assistance with treatment and finalizing crowns using CEREC.

Volunteers from Dentsply Sirona China joined a project led by the China Oral Health Foundation to bring oral health services to Guangxi where basic services are lacking.

Individual employees also use their own time and skills to help others in need. For example, Denise Hetu, Clinical Product Specialist in Montreal, joined a grueling weeklong humanitarian mission as a hygienist providing treatment in Champerico, a small Guatemalan village on the Pacific coast. Access to dental care was very limited for many of the patients, some of whom did not even own a toothbrush. Over the course of the week the team treated 356 patients.

As a company, Dentsply Sirona cares deeply about the dental community and many employees have a network of dental professionals with whom they keep in close contact. 2017 had its share of hurricanes and natural disasters and those events had a devastating effect on many dentists. So when disaster struck, to help address urgent needs such as food, bottled water, clothing, blankets, medicines and medical supplies, emergency shelter, and toiletries, Dentsply Sirona made a donation to the American Dental Association (ADA) Foundation to support their Emergency Disaster Grant Program. The program aims to provide immediate financial assistance to eligible dentists who are victims of a disaster.

Since 2010, the Smile Charity Foundation and Korea Dentist Association have been co-organizing the Smile Run Festival, an event consisting of a half marathon, 10km, 5km and family walk. Dentsply Sirona Korea employees have been participating since 2013 by running or walking with their family members to raise awareness for prevention and early detection of oral cavity cancer. The run supports patients in need with treatment and operations for oral cavity cancer and facial deformities.

Dentsply Sirona also supports team Rynkeby, a charity cycling team that rides for children with critical illnesses in the Nordic region. The charity includes 1,700 cyclists and 450 volunteers distributed across 44 local teams in six Nordic countries. Every summer the team raises money by riding to Paris to coincide with the final stage of the Tour de France.

Many offices take up collections for local causes around the holidays and this has become a tradition in Bensheim and New York among other locations. Last year, a donation was made to the Bergstrasse Hospice in Bensheim, which provides a caring space for people with advanced, incurable diseases who can no longer receive the treatment they need at home. Donation boxes were prominently on display at all entrance gates, and at the annual St. Nicholas Dinner, employees could easily make a donation in the cafeteria with their employee ID cards. A total of €8,000 was donated to the hospice.

Employees in New York sponsored 40 children through the Salvation Army’s Angel Tree Program, which pairs donors with children from eligible local families ensuring that those children receive toys and don’t feel forgotten during the holidays.

The San Patrignano recovery community in the Rimini province of Italy is a home for youth who are recovering from drug addiction. The community has its own dental center and Dentsply Sirona and the Technology Store HiSii donated a CEREC system consisting of an intraoral scanner and a milling unit to help the center go digital.

The China Oral Health Foundation’s Comprehensive Prevention and Treatment of Oral Diseases for Disabled Children and Orphan Project has provided oral health services to children in 23 provinces of China since 2011. To support the foundation, Dentsply Sirona auctioned off the world’s last C8+ treatment center at the Sino Dental Show for an astounding $23,000.

Last year, Dentsply Sirona supported dental procedures on some surprising patients: an eight-year-old female bottlenose dolphin named Dumisa at Hong Kong’s Ocean Park, and two adult lions at the Abu Dhabi Wildlife Center.

Dumisa’s teeth were very worn but advances in endodontic therapeutics enabled the veterinary dentist to consider root canal treatment on the affected teeth using products supplied by Dentsply Sirona for the root canal procedure, preparation, compounding and filling of the canal. Amazingly, this was all possible without anesthesia!

Dentsply Sirona lent its support to the dentists treating the pair of lions by developing a sequence of Hedstroems from ISO 030 to ISO 180 and donating X-Smart iQ and ProTaper Gold files. The animals benefited from having to spend less time under anesthesia, reducing any potential negative effects.