It’s a Blog Parade, it’s over in the CLASSroom, and the theme is “Flowers”. How fun is that! Here is the card I made to play along.
The poppies were colored with Copics. Enamel Accents were used to dot the centers of the two largest blooms which were cut out and popped up.
My card today also represents something near and dear to my heart. My son, Jeff, whom I have spoken of before, will be graduating from dental school in the Spring. Jeff is also in the Army National Guard and works on soldiers at an Army Processing Center to ensure that our soldiers have their dental needs taken care of before being deployed overseas. One of his colleagues has opened a Veteran’s Dental Clinic as a memorial to his brother Sgt. Clint Ferrin who was killed by an IED on March 13th 2004 in Baghdad, Iraq. The purpose of the Clinic is to help restore our veterans’ oral health free of charge.
Here is the story behind the Clinic:
“Sergeant First Class (SFC) Ferrin was an American hero. He served in Bosnia, West Africa, Afghanistan, and Iraq in the US Army 82nd Airborne Division as an Infantryman. During training SFC Ferrin had a front tooth knocked out. Frequent deployments, training and a lack of desire to take off work kept him from receiving the proper dental treatment. Two years after he lost his tooth he was given a removable partial denture with fake tooth. Clint was later killed by an IED on March 13th 2004 in Baghdad, Iraq. We know there are more of our servicemen and servicewomen who are like SFC Ferrin. Our clinic serves a variety of veterans.”
Jeff (front left) with his fellow National Guard Dental Students
“One aspect of the clinic serves members of the National Guard. Unlike the active duty troops, they do not get 100% of dental treatment covered. Most of those who join the Guard do so to help their struggling budgets. Thus, the lack of 100% coverage of dental insurance persuades many of them to avoid dental treatment overall. The qualifications that we give the National Guard Units when they refer soldiers is that they have no dental insurance, are experiencing financial difficulties, and have served in a combat zone or have a deployment date with their unit. The other groups of veterans that we are focusing on are those who are not currently in the service. We will serve those who were never called to be a combat zone. However, we will give priority to those who actually served in war zones in wars including World War II, Korean, Vietnam, Desert Storm, Operation Iraqi Freedom, and Operation Enduring Freedom Veterans.”
I have added a link to Sgt. Ferrin Veteran’s Memorial Dental Clinic in the sidebar here on my blog. If you would like to donate to the clinic to help restore our veterans’ oral health, please know that 100% of donated money goes towards treating veterans. 0% goes to administration, 0% goes towards advertising and 0% goes towards the website. The dentists (and dental students) all donate their time. Even the University of Nevada Las Vegas School of Dental Medicine donates the space and equipment. The main expense for the clinic is the lab work, and even that is done at cost. So any donation goes a long way in helping our veterans.
The administration is still in the process of setting up PayPal donation capabilities so until that time all donations can be made by calling:
Donations: 702.774.2507
Information: 702.774.2460
Email: [email protected]
Address:
UNLV School of Dental Medicine
Attn: Veteran’s Dental Clinic
1101 Shadow Ln
Las Vegas, NV 89106
Hey, thanks for sticking with me today! I do hope that you can have some fun and play along in the CLASSroom’s Blog Parade with Flowers. If you do, be sure to visit this CLASSroom post and leave a link to your creation.
Happy Crafting!
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Stamps: Hero Arts “Poppy Background” and Cornish Heritage Farms “We Remember”
Papers: Neenah “Solar White” Cardstock
Inks: Memento “Tuxedo Black”; Archival “Jet Black”; Copics:
Accessories: Ranger Enamel Accents; GG Ribbon
