A patient before his treatment began at Gulf Coast Dental Outreach.

Gulf Coast Dental Outreach's mission is to provide low-cost access to dental care through education, prevention and treatment of disease, focusing on Pinellas, Pasco and Hillsborough counties in Florida. Achieving these goals has never been more important than now.

More than 257,000 individuals live below 200 percent of the Federal poverty level in Pinellas. Of this group, only 5 percent of adults have access to dental care.

Why? Medicaid has historically focused on providing aid to children of low-income families. While this is an admirable cause, care for adults has fallen by the wayside. In 2005, about 30 percent of children of low-income families in Pinellas has access to dental care, compared with less than 5 percent of adults.

Plus, as the paperwork headaches of Medicaid only get worse, private practices are accepting it less and less. The number of private practices accepting Medicaid fell by almost 20 percentage points between 2000 and 2005, and volunteer clinics have yet to take up the slack.

Luckily, Gulf Coast Dental Outreach is working toward an answer. With your help, we can make a difference in this dire need. Please view the "Our Role" screen to learn about how Gulf Coast Dental Outreach is addressing this need.