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For dentist Tanek Jenkins, hosting a dental health fair for the community's children was a sweet dream come true.

Jenkins, 37, owner of ABC Dentistry in Oxon Hill, said she has always wanted to host an event that advocates for good dental hygiene for children and access to affordable dental health care. On Saturday, her practice rolled out its first annual Back to School Community Day outside its office along Oxon Hill Road.

Jenkins, who lives in Fort Washington, spent the day giving free dental screenings to more than 150 young children as well as passing out backpacks and food and providing pony rides and moon bounces for area children. Jenkins said it was important for parents to understand the importance of introducing children at a young age to dental health.

"I love working with children," she said. "I know that I can impact their joy for dentistry for life."

Since opening the boutique dental practice specializing in child dental care in 2006, Jenkins, 37, has seen 1,000 cavities, pulled more than 200 teeth and performed more than 500 root canals on children.

"I'm seeing cavities at an alarming rate," she said. "Oral health is so important to a child's overall wellbeing. If a child's tooth hurts, he's not going to pay attention [in school]. ... Cavities are a disease, and I want children to be disease-free."

Jenkins' desire to advocate for child health care extends beyond her practice. In 2008, she joined the Deamonte Driver Dental Project, a grassroots community initiative that aims to eliminate health disparities in underserved populations.

The project is named after Deamonte Driver, a 12-year-old Clinton boy who died in 2007 after bacteria from tooth decay spread and infected his brain. Driver had only Medicaid to cover dental cost, and his mother said she was unable to find a dentist who took the insurance.

Children from families without dental insurance are three times more likely than insured children to have unmet dental needs, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than half of children between ages 5 and 9 have had at least one cavity or filling, according to the CDC.

"When [children] get to be 7 or 8, who's looking in their mouths [for cavities]?"Jenkins asked.

Darrell Clark, a Clinton-based orthodontist who participated in the community day, said that Jenkins' expertise in pediatric dentistry has been an asset to local residents.

"As a pediatric dentist, [Jenkins] is going to see some things that general dentists don't," he said. "There isn't always a net for these children to fall in," he said.

Hazel Harper, director of the Deamonte Driver Dental Project, said that the organization was so impressed by Jenkins' efforts that they use her office as model for child dentistry. Harper said child dentistry requires two extra years of dental school and other costs associated with the practice, such as anesthesia to calm jittery children, often can make it less profitable than general dentistry.

"She is very engaged and deeply committed to children," Harper said. "There's only a few [dentists] who are able to make that sacrifice with time and the loss of income."

jgarner@gazette.net