A Familiar Face at the Door
When James first walked into Community Dental Clinic in November 2023, he wasn’t looking for anything more than relief. He was in pain, and sensitivity had made it hard to think about much else. The clinic’s dentist recommended a plan: cleanings, fillings, a root canal, and eventually a crown. James followed through and felt like himself again. That is, until an accident broke the very bridge that had restored his smile. The team got him back in the chair and fitted him with a new one. “Now I can smile, eat, and socialize confidently,” James said. “Thank you, Community Dental Clinic.”
James is one neighbor, in one chair, on one afternoon. But his story sits inside a much bigger one: a community of donors, volunteers, and neighbors who have kept the doors of a small Clearwater clinic open for people who would otherwise have nowhere to go.
Since 2017: A Community Showing Up, Grant by Grant
In 2009, access to dental services was identified as the number one social service need in Pinellas County.
In 2011, united with a shared vision for providing affordable dental services, The Salvation Army, Clearwater Free Clinic and Arc of Tampa Bay collaborated to establish the Community Dental Clinic.
In 2013, the clinic opened its doors to the community—supported by the donations of gracious individuals, foundations and organizations, and the commitment of dedicated dental and non-dental volunteers.
And in 2017, Pinellas Community Foundation’s relationship with Community Dental Clinic begins with the earliest grant on record between the two organizations. In the years since, PCF has granted the clinic $385,348 for everything from general operating support and equipment upgrades to senior-focused care, pandemic response, and, most recently, help building an entirely new site. Behind every dollar is the same idea: Pinellas County takes care of its own.
Building Access, Grant by Grant
The earliest grants helped the clinic simply keep its doors open and its patient list growing. In 2018, a Dental Day funded in part by PCF brought in 40 people for exams, treatment, and extractions. By 2019, the clinic had increased dental access for the low-income, uninsured adults of upper Pinellas County by approximately 36 percent—593 new patients—and provided more than 3,300 appointments that year, up from 1,905 the year before. Staff were soon enrolling 35 to 45 new patients each month, most of them arriving in acute pain.
Equipment That Meets Neighbors Where They Are
As the need grew, so did the tools behind it. A new vacuum system let the clinic run all five dental and hygiene chairs at once, instead of staggering patients through one at a time. Leslie, a single mom making PPE masks for essential workers during the pandemic, was one of 17 people treated in one day. “Every weekend now my kids and I are out doing something,” she said, “and I am able to do that because I am not in pain.”
A new dental chair arrived the same week its 24-year-old predecessor finally gave out. More than 75 percent of the clinic’s patients fear the dentist to some degree, and the new chair was built with that in mind: accommodating patients like Sheila, whose anxiety had once caused her to bolt from the room during an adjustment, and Barry, who could finally sit comfortably without the seating struggles that came with the old equipment. New digital x-ray sensors followed in 2022, bringing clearer imaging to a clinic that performed more than 9,490 procedures and provided 2,495 x-rays that year alone: 646 of them for patients seen within 48 hours of reaching out in pain.
Showing Up Through Crisis
When COVID-19 hit, Pinellas Community Foundation’s Tampa Bay Resiliency Fund helped Community Dental Clinic retrofit its space with HEPA filtration, UV lighting, sneeze guards, and infrared temperature screening. The clinic reopened after just seven weeks of downtime and went on to serve 1,308 clients through the fund.
One patient, Monica, and her husband both lost their dental insurance when the pandemic cut their hours. “I’d rather go through childbirth than have tooth pain,” she said. Both are now getting the care they need at the clinic. “They’re amazing,” she said. “It’s just amazing people there donating to the cause for people who are down and out that really need help.” Ed, who cleans pools for a living, had reached the point of considering pulling his own teeth before he found the clinic. “They have taken care of my teeth and I’m not in pain anymore,” he said of Dr. Tran and her team. “They’re really good people.”
Caring for Pinellas County’s Seniors
An Act II Impact Grant and a Senior Citizens Services grant turned the clinic’s attention to older neighbors managing pain many had simply learned to live with. Between July 2020 and July 2021, the clinic treated 167 seniors and today provides a dental home for 910 of them. Funding brought an intraoral camera for better diagnostics and equipment to fit custom mouth guards, together helping more than 200 Pinellas County seniors protect their teeth.
Ralph, 74, had simply accepted his decayed and damaged teeth as part of growing older, until an abscess left him in the ER. The clinic eliminated the infection and extracted two unrepairable teeth. He left, as the clinic put it, “pain free & smiling — something [he] hadn’t done in a while.” Avery, 62 and uninsured, had spent a month trying to manage an abscessed molar with clove oil before she found her way to the clinic, where a custom night guard and a new care routine finally brought her relief.
Strength in Numbers
By 2022–2023, the clinic was serving 815 patients and addressing 99 percent of their dental needs, including 55 root canals and 64 dentures and partials. That year also brought new community partners: the Wounded Veterans Relief Fund donated milling equipment enabling same-day crowns for disabled veterans in Pinellas County, the Clearwater Police Department contributed toward care for victims of crime, and three new volunteer dentists joined the clinic’s roster. In November 2023, the clinic broke ground on an expanded facility—the next chapter in a story Pinellas County had been helping write for years.
A New Front Door for Pinellas County
Federal recovery funds* helped Community Dental Clinic purchase new dental chairs and sterilization equipment for that new facility, which opened its doors on June 9, 2025, expanding the clinic from five operatories to nine. Community donors joined in too, including a $1.5 million gift from the Ruth & J.O. Stone Foundation toward the capital campaign that made the new building possible. Together, it means more Pinellas County neighbors can be seen sooner. By the end of 2024, the clinic had provided care to 727 unique patients, and the value of the dental services it delivered grew from $1,283,935 in 2023 to $2,328,299 in 2024.
Still Showing Up
Nearly a decade in, the throughline hasn’t changed. Someone walks into a small clinic on Missouri Avenue in pain, and a community of neighbors, donors, and professionals has made sure someone is there to help. The patients mentioned in this story are proof of that. So is everyone who came before them, and everyone still to come.
Inspired by this story? You can donate now directly to the Community Dental Clinic Endowment Fund.
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* ARPA Nonprofit Capital Project Fund
