Total grant funds represent the foundation’s largest annual statewide distribution to date.
 

March 4, 2025

Media contact: Jeremy Butterfield, jeremy.butterfield@deltadentalva.com

ROANOKE, Va. — The Delta Dental of Virginia Foundation today announced $950,000 in grants distributed to 14 safety-net clinics and education centers focused on improving oral health in the communities served. The grant funds represent the Foundation’s largest total statewide grant distribution to date in support of Virginia’s oral health safety net. The Delta Dental of Virginia Foundation’s grant program supports its three pillars of service: supporting dental safety-net clinics, boosting prevention and advancing oral health education.  

“Working together with our partners throughout the state, we are supporting the dental workforce and bringing care to vulnerable and underserved populations in need of oral health education, care and support,” said Frank Lucia, Delta Dental of Virginia president and chief executive officer. “The work being done inside these safety-net clinics is critical to the overall health of the patients served and our grantees are implementing programs that will make an immediate difference in expanding access to affordable dental care throughout the commonwealth.”
 

Virginia’s safety net helps ensure that people who are uninsured or receive Medicaid have access to oral health care. Virginia’s safety net is made up of 31 Federally Qualified Health Centers with more than 200 locations and over 63 free clinics and various supporting organizations, such as hospital systems and Virginia community colleges. This year’s grant initiatives include:

• Arlington Free Clinic (Arlington): Supporting workforce expansion and access to dental services with funds to help subsidize the addition of one full-time dental hygienist.
• Bland Ministry Center (Bland): Supporting construction costs for an educational meeting room to provide continuing education and host local dental-field students through community partnerships.
• Bradley Free Clinic (Roanoke): Funds used to provide stipends, dental supplies, housing and meals for VCU School of Dentistry students, as well as salary support for the dental assistant and preceptor working with students.
• Charlottesville Free Clinic (Charlottesville): Grant funds expand care by subsidizing employment cost for the clinic’s dentist. 
• Child Health Investment Partnership (Roanoke): Funds support a bilingual care coordinator providing oral health education and dental/medical case management to enrolled children and adults.
• CrossOver Ministry Inc. (Richmond): Funds expand oral health care services through support of a new part-time dental hygienist and the hiring of a full-time bilingual dental assistant.
• Free Clinic of Powhatan (Powhatan): Grant funding expands care by subsidizing the salary of a part-time dentist. 
• HELP, Inc. [Hampton Ecumenical Lodging and Provisions] (Hampton): Funds support HELP’s efforts to integrate 3D printing technology into clinic services to make affordable dentures, night guards and crowns for patients.
• New Horizons Healthcare [Kuumba Community Health & Wellness Center] (Roanoke): The grant award expands care by helping to underwrite the salary of a new dentist.
• Medical College of Virginia Foundation (Richmond): Funding adds equipment and furnishings to serve patients with special health care needs and train future oral health practitioners on inclusive dentistry best practices. 
• Appalachian Highlands Community Dental Center [Mission Dental Virginia Inc.] (Abingdon): Funding supports a capital expansion that will add 2,500 additional square feet to house a future denture lab. 
• Northern Neck Middlesex Free Health Clinic (Kilmarnock): Funds used to recruit and provide partial salary support for a full- or part-time dentist. 
• The Fauquier Free Clinic (Warrenton): Funds expand care to the region by supporting the salary of a new part-time dentist.
• Germanna Community College (Fredericksburg): Funding supports faculty salaries and provides scholarships to new students enrolled in Germanna Community College and Mountain Empire Community College’s Dental Assisting II program.

According to a recent oral health workforce gap assessment published by Virginia’s Future of Public Health Taskforce, there are two major workforce challenges facing Virginia. First, there are not enough oral health professionals in every locality of the commonwealth to adequately serve the community. Second, there are not enough oral health professionals who serve uninsured, underinsured or Medicaid-insured Virginians. In fact, 103 of Virginia’s 133 localities are designated a dental Health Professional Shortage Area and nearly 30% of Virginia's dental workforce is expected to retire in the next decade.
 

To meet this growing need, the Delta Dental of Virginia Foundation is partnering with organizations throughout the state to implement programs supporting Virginia’s oral health workforce, including the development and funding of a statewide Loan Repayment Program for emerging dentists, the creation of the Dental Health Summer Institute at the ODU School of Dentistry to provide high school students an immersive week-long dental experience, and a strategic focus on awarding grants that support projects focused on workforce programs.