By: Leah Grygleski
Volunteering with Global Dental Relief (GDR) is an exciting and transformative experience. Whether you’ve traveled to remote corners of the world to provide essential dental care and oral health education or worked behind the scenes to support our efforts — your time and expertise have made a tangible difference in the lives of countless children. But the impact doesn’t have to end when you return home. One of the most powerful ways you can continue supporting GDR’s mission is by raising awareness and sharing future opportunities with others.
By sharing your experience and educating others about the ongoing need for accessible dental care in underserved communities, you can help expand the reach of this vital work and inspire more people to get involved.
When you volunteer with GDR, you become a firsthand witness to the challenges people face in accessing basic healthcare. The communities we serve still lack the infrastructure and resources to meet even the most basic dental needs.
By sharing stories and photos from your time volunteering, you can highlight these challenges and emphasize how life-changing something as simple as a routine dental cleaning or filling can be. Social media platforms, blogs, or community events are great outlets for spreading the word! You can create content that highlights not only the problems but also the solutions that GDR provides, showcasing the positive impact of volunteerism and the incredible difference a single dental clinic can make in a community’s health.
Raising awareness doesn’t stop at sharing your experience — it also means actively engaging others in the cause. By becoming an advocate for our mission, you are helping to create a ripple effect of generosity, compassion and action, all aimed at providing essential dental care to those who need it most.
Here are a few ways you can advocate:
- Organize a fundraising effort: There are many online platforms that make it easy to get started, like Facebook or GoFundMe. Consider pairing a fundraiser with your next birthday/anniversary/holiday and ask for donations in lieu of gifts.
- Write about your experience: Try connecting with your local newspaper, a local club or community newsletter to publish a short article and a few photos!
- Host a Toothbrush Packing event: GDR delivers thousands of toothbrushes per year to children around the world. They are donated or ordered to our office, and often come in bulky plastic. We take them out of the original bags and pack them in reusable sacks of 100 to be easily distributed inside our field dental clinics. Help us by taking a few boxes home to re-pack, or make an event out of it with your friends, family, office or clubs!
- Organize a dental supply drive: We always need toothbrushes and floss for our clinics (no toothpaste, please). You can also contact your local dentist(s) and ask them to collect supplies on behalf of GDR. You can find a list of our accepted dental donations here.
Awareness often leads to action. When people understand the critical need for dental care in underserved areas, they are moved to offer their support and allow GDR to continue and expand its reach. The mission of Global Dental Relief is bigger than any single trip or volunteer experience — it’s an ongoing movement to ensure that every person, no matter where they live, has access to the dental care they need.
Ultimately, continuing your support for Global Dental Relief after volunteering is about making a long-term commitment to the cause. Whether through raising awareness, encouraging others to volunteer, or actively supporting fundraising initiatives, your involvement will help transform lives on a global scale.
By sharing your passion for dental care and the mission of GDR, you’re not just raising awareness—you’re creating a network of change-makers who will make a lasting difference in the world.
Contact us today and share how you plan to continue supporting GDR from home!