Bringing Health and Hope to Underserved Communities

In 2008 we traveled to the remote village Cayambe, Ecuador to serve 395 patients. Our medical and dental team plans to return every year to serve another village near Quito, Ecuador. Doctor Paul Ouellette’s son, Doctor Jason Ouellette, graduated from UOP San Francisco in June 2009. In October 2009 he joined his father and the SIFAT mission team to return to Quito, Ecuador. This year the mission team served more than 450 patients.

After two mission trips to Ecuador, Dr. Ouellette launched the “Earn Your Smile” program to help those in this country who need financial help for orthodontic work. In addition to helping the charitable organizations obtain volunteers, the program seeks to instill a desire to volunteer in the young. Volunteers must fill out the vouchers and answer questions about what the experience meant to them.

Earn Your Smile helps young patients get braces even if their families have trouble affording them. Children can perform up to 100 hours of community service, preapproved by Dr. Ouellette’s office. The charity must sign a voucher, printed out by the patient, to verify the work was done. The patient then turns in those vouchers and gets $12 of orthodontic work for every community service hour. The Dental Specialists office subtracts the volunteer credits from the patient’s bill.