Patient Spotlight

Leah’s Story

“If I want to smile, I can.”

Full extractions & dentures

Leah: before and after treatment at Mint for More — Before & after — Leah, a real Mint for More patient. Photo used with permission.

Ask Leah how her teeth affected her daily life and the answer is three words: “I didn’t smile.” She’s a working restaurant manager who simply lived with constant abscess pain and stopped showing her teeth to anyone.

She went to the emergency room more than once. Each time they gave her medicine and sent her home — no referral to a dentist, no path forward. Years ago, a denture place quoted her around $500 and framed actually fixing her teeth as costing even more. She paid, and never went back.

“With all the pain I’d been through? A thousand pounds — worth it.”

Without Mint for More, she says plainly, she “would have just dealt with it” — the way so many neighbors quietly do.

After extractions and dentures, the constant pain is gone, the hot-and-cold sensitivity is gone, and the smile is back. “It was great,” she says of the team. “I thought it wasn’t going to be — and I feel better now.”

What changed

“I didn’t smile”Now: “if I want to smile, I can.”

ER, no referralMedicine and a dead end. Now: real care.

A $500 dead endPriced out years ago. Now: free, and finished.

Constant painAbscesses and sensitivity — gone.

Leah smiling after treatment at Mint for More

“Give them more money to help everybody. More people need help.”

— Leah, to the donors who make this care possible

Mint for More provides free dental care to neighbors who lack access to a dental home. Stories like Leah’s are made possible by donors — and by the nonprofit partners who refer the neighbors we serve.

Donate Partner with us