By Stephanie Sonntag
At a long rectangle table, a white-haired man wearing a golf T-shirt, a Hispanic woman with long dark hair and a young man with a pockmarked face and a yellow Fox Racing sweatshirt gather around and play with a deck of Uno cards.
This unusual trio is brought together by a common need - the dentist. Though a visit to the dentist is somewhat frightening to many Americans, these patients seem relaxed.
A cacophony of sounds echoes down the hall as the dentists and volunteers scrape teeth, take X-rays and talk to the patients. All of the materials in the office have been donated from local dentist offices from X-ray machines and dentist chairs to picks and scrapers.
A small Korean boy with dark eyes and flighty hair walks up the stairs into the dental office, his mother carefully trails behind.
'We better take the 10-year-old boy first,' says one of the volunteer dental hygienists.
Dr. Eric Vogel is bustling around, his white-collar shirt peeking from underneath the transparent apron tied around his neck. Vogel says hello to regular visitors, Victor and Norm and gets started on the boy''s mouth.
Fluorescent pink sunglasses sit just above the dentist''s nose to protect his eyes from the overhead light. Vogel gently sticks his scraper into the boy''s mouth and playfully talks to him and refers to his tools as 'balls of fire' and 'little toothpicks.'
Vogel has been a practicing dentist for 17 years, teaches part-time at BYU and is the president and founder of Share a Smile, an organization, along with support from the Food & Care Coalition, that provides dental care to individuals who can''t afford to pay.
'Most of the patients that we have come in with little or no previous dental care,' Vogel said. 'Many of them live on the streets. But we give them the same quality care that we would want to receive ourselves.'
Share a Smile has traveled to Russia, Malaysia, China and Haiti several times. But they have plenty of dental work to do in the community.
'You don''t have to go very far to find people who are in need,' Vogel said.
He said the people he works with here have as many problems as the people who live in impoverished countries.
Because the patients often have complex procedures for their teeth - crowns, fillings and root canals - they come in regularly and establish relationships with the dentists and volunteers.
During the Christmas break, one of their favorite patients passed away. He was a former business owner whose life was ravished by alcohol and drugs.
'He was kind of a rough-looking guy,' said Nancy Mickiewicz, community resource director for the Food & Care Coalition. 'But to see him stand up one day in the dining room and announce that he was grateful to smile after 25 years of bad teeth - that''s the reward.'
They also helped a 60-year-old woman with two missing front teeth who worked as a child-care assistant. The children she worked with prayed that she would get help with new teeth.
She was so grateful to have her smile corrected, Mickiewicz said. When she would hug you it was hard not to get emotional.
'Everyone here has done what they could to earn it,' Vogel said. 'It''s not a government handout.'
However, Vogel''s generosity towards his patients hasn''t gone unnoticed.
'He really does walk the walk and talk the talk,' Mickiewicz said. 'He''s very humble about it.'