Recruiting dental professionals \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\nOne of the most important parts of this mission was to recruit dentists, hygienists and dental assistants. White said they started doing the recruiting last fall.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was slow going at first,\u201d she said. \u201cThere were other free dental care events that they were used to participating in. Many had not done a Baptist dental mission before. This was a new thing for our church and for these dentists.\u201d<\/p>\n
White and her team recruited 13 dentists and 13 hygienists from 11 different offices. The good news is the dental professionals enjoyed the work and asked to be notified of the next dental mission, she said. \u201cI think recruiting will go easier next year.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey did an amazing job of recruiting that many dentists,\u201d said Marc Johnston, who leads community ministries for the Florida Baptist Convention. \u201cThat\u2019s just fantastic.\u201d<\/p>\n
They also had to recruit all of the church volunteers who worked the event.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe also had well over 120 volunteers from our church who jumped on board and took on roles they felt marginally prepared for but were willing to step out in faith and give it a shot,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Getting the word out <\/strong><\/p>\nIn addition to publicizing the event across social media, the church also sent flyers to social service agencies and to local food pantries, which put the flyers inside the bags of food that people received.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that was really one of the major sources of how people found out about what we were doing,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Screening attendees <\/strong><\/p>\nEach person who received services at the dental clinic had to be screened to ensure they were eligible financially. Church volunteers took the training from the Florida Department of Health and screened each of the 125 people.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe helped people answer the questions and made sure they were qualified,\u201d she said. \u201cOut of all the people we screened, we really only had one who was not eligible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Once people were screened, they were then given an appointment time. One week before the event, 75% of the appointment slots had been filled. The remainder for the week were filled the first day.<\/p>\n
Long days <\/strong><\/p>\nThe schedule ran from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. on three days, and 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on the other days. On the long days the shifts would run from 8 a.m. to noon, then break for an hour. Then go from 1 to 5 p.m., break for an hour, and back from 6 to 9 p.m. White noted the night shifts filled up first because more dentists and hygienists could do those time slots.<\/p>\n
Food crew\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\nChurch volunteers also served as the food crew, providing lunches, snacks and beverages each day and an additional dinner meal during the 12-hour shift days. \u201cWe had a wonderful food crew. She recruited different people for different meals and offered a mix of purchased food and prepared food.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prayer teams<\/strong><\/p>\nOne group of church volunteers served on the spiritual care team. Their role was to initiate conversations with those who were waiting for their appointments and ask if they could pray for them. This included praying for those who were in pain as they waited for their appointment time. These volunteers were also ready to share the gospel with everyone they spoke to.<\/p>\n
Training \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\nIf your church is interested in participating in this mission, the Florida Baptist Convention can provide the information and training you need. White and a few other church members attended a training event last spring that helped provide all that is required in hosting this event.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s when I knew we have to try this,\u201d White said. \u201cWe have done events in the past where we helped veterans, and there was always such gratitude because pain was being relieved for dental issues that people had for years. They were able to get care for free that they could not have afforded any other way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Johnston said dental clinics are a popular ministry, with 32 scheduled at Florida churches this year.\u00a0 The majority are done as weeklong events, just like First Baptist Tallahassee did. While the 2026 schedule is almost complete, there are still some weeks available.<\/p>\n
The compassion aspect of the ministry is what appeals to most churches, Johnston said, especially those who have done any previous compassion work.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey see the need, and they want to meet it,\u201d he said. \u201cWe do have some churches that have used the dental ministry as a springboard to engage their community. It really helps them get started.\u201d<\/p>\n
White raved about all the support and encouragement she received, not only from her fellow church volunteers, but from outside the church as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe felt very loved and supported through the whole process,\u201d she said. \u201cThe locals who had done this before were so helpful. And the trainers from the Florida Baptist Convention were awesome. They really do their best to prepare you for what we were going to experience.\u201d<\/p>\n
She encourages other churches to take advantage of this opportunity.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was a great experience for First Baptist Church of Tallahassee. We are just following in the footsteps of churches who have done this for years with huge success and have wonderful stories to tell about it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If your church is considering hosting the Florida Baptist Convention\u2019s Mobile Dental Unit as a mission outreach, Merrilee White says you should say yes to this opportunity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":50646,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[161,17,49,22,23,25],"tags":[1126,1127,1128,1129,163],"class_list":["post-50167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-church-community","category-missions","category-region-north","category-providing","category-sharing","category-stories","tag-community","tag-dentistry","tag-first-baptist-church-of-tallahassee","tag-ministry","tag-mobile-dental-unit"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50167"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64706,"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50167\/revisions\/64706"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}