Mission of Mercy 
provides free dental clinic at speedway

At 7 a.m. this morning Iowa Mission of Mercy at Iowa Speedway opened its doors to anyone in need of free dental care.

Organizers expect to serve as many as 1,400 people during the two-day event in Newton, which is free to all.

Dr. Steve Rabedeaux, Newton dentist and chair of the Iowa Mission of Mercy local steering committee talked about the event at a press conference on Thursday afternoon at Iowa Speedway.

While he spoke, volunteers around him were transforming the speedway garages into a full-scale field dental clinic. Rabedeaux praised the volunteers for all their effort, as well as the Iowa Speedway for agreeing to host the event.

“From the moment we asked them to partner with us on this project, it’s been ‘yes we can’ and they have been five-star in accommodating us the whole way. We have a community that supported us — that almost moves me to emotion (over) the kind of outpouring and support we had,” he said. “Their support has been phenomenal.”

Iowa Mission of Mercy Chair Dr. Richard Hettinger of Sioux City said Newton was chosen as the location for this year’s event because of its proximity to Des Moines, the fact that it’s still a rural community and Newton’s high unemployment rate.

“Newton stood out because of its hardships that have gone here in the past couple of years with the loss of industry, very high unemployment rate in this county,” he said. “Oral health has a direct relationship to general overall health so that’s one of the big reasons we want to do this. The services we provide here don’t just make people smile because of improving looks to their teeth, but they can feel better and have better general health besides.”

The care provided at Mission of Mercy is completely free and open to anyone. The event is already under way and runs today until 5:30 p.m. and again on Saturday from 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Participants can simply come to the speedway and volunteers will assist them. Child care will be available on site, but officials encourage adults to bring along another responsible adult to care for young children while services are being rendered. Patients will be treated on a first-come, first-served basis.