They started lining up outside the Liston B. Ramsey Center last night. By midnight there were two hundred or so. A volunteer gave them vouchers for their place in line and sent them to sleep in their cars or wherever they could. The doors would open at 6 am. There is no Apple Store in Cullowhee. Football is weeks away and basketball is months. Justin Bieber is not appearing on the Western Carolina campus. They were waiting to get in to see Dr. Nabors or someone like him. They were there for the free dental clinic which was held today and will continue tomorrow.
Some were told that it would only be possible to finish the work on half of their mouth today. Maybe that’s because of the Novocaine, but it might also be because of just how much work they needed. Maybe they had waited for years to see a dentist because gas, food, and rent pretty much took everything they had. Maybe they are sleeping in their cars again tonight with their mouths half fixed. It’s raining like The Flood out here this evening. As a friend of mine said, “it’s a pain in the ass being poor.”
So bless the dentists, hygienists, and volunteers. Bless the folks at Western for opening up the space. Bless everyone who came to get help and those who were too embarrassed. This is what “the private sector stepping up” looks like. This particular part of the private sector has been doing this since 2002. Not everyone’s teeth are fixed yet. Not by a long shot. This week, the day after the House of Representatives voted to cut food stamps by $16 billion, somebody with an abscessed tooth slept on the sidewalk outside a gym so that a dentist might look at it in the morning. I’m not saying that $16 billion will fix poverty in this country, but it will be that much more painful for poor people without it.