Aspen Dental and Curley Company won the Best Integration Into Culture category at the 2022 PRWeek Purpose Awards for the annual Day of Service initiative. The Purpose Awards recognize activations and innovations that use creative ideas to further positive causes and to celebrate the agencies, brands, public-sector organizations, non-profits, and NGOs behind them.
US Veteran gets free dental care at Aspen Dental during the Aspen Dental Day of Service on Saturday, June 11, 2022 in Chicago. (Jean-Marc Giboux/AP Images for Aspen Dental)
On Saturday, June 11th, more than 400 Aspen Dental locations opened their doors for the 8th annual Day of Service to provide care to more than 3,000 military veterans and their families, resulting in $1.8 million in free dental services.
Medical professionals and care teams in the Aspen Dental network of independent offices broke down barriers to care and treated veterans’ most urgent dental needs, from fillings and extractions to hygiene and basic denture repairs.
“Our annual Day of Service is core to our mission and it’s something that our team can rally around every year,” said Bob Fontana, founder and CEO of Aspen Dental Management, Inc. “I’m honored to receive this recognition on behalf of the teams across the Aspen Dental network who give of their time and expertise to care for veterans, and I’m also proud of the message that our team has sent through this campaign. As an industry, we must do more to connect with vulnerable communities and make sure that all members of society have access to high quality, affordable dental care.”
Millions of Americans struggle to access dental care every year, and veterans are no exception – in fact, U.S. veterans are ineligible for dental benefits through the Veterans Administration unless they’re 100% disabled, have a service-related mouth injury or were a prisoner of war.
The success of this year’s Day of Service builds on the ongoing impact of Aspen’s Healthy Mouth Movement (HMM), a community-giving initiative launched in 2014 to deliver free dental care to veterans in need across the country. Since the launch of HMM, dentists and their teams from Aspen Dental-branded offices have donated over $26 million in dentistry services to more than 33,000 veterans and people in need.
For more information about Day of Service and HMM, visit www.HealthyMouthMovement.com.
About Aspen Dental Offices
The company was founded in 1998 in New York by Bob Fontana with a simple goal in mind: to break down the barriers that doctors and patients face when it comes to dental care.
Today, more than 20 years later, with 1,000+ branded locations nationwide, the mission of the company remains the same – to bring better care to more people. Aspen Dental is the largest group of branded dental offices in the world.
For more information, visit aspendental.com, and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
About TAG – The Aspen Group
TAG – The Aspen Group was built on the simple idea of bringing better healthcare to more people. The independent healthcare practices TAG supports operate more than 1,300 locations in 45 states through its six consumer healthcare brands: Aspen Dental, ClearChoice Dental Implant Center, WellNow Urgent Care, Chapter Aesthetic Studio, and AZPetVet.
Combined, the practices serve more than 35,000 patients each day and more than 8 million patients each year. TAG is headquartered at 800 W. Fulton Market in Chicago. For more information, visit teamtag.com, and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.
