When we set the original goal for Mint for More, we said one million dollars of free dental care in a single year by 2028.
We hit it in 2025. Three years ahead of schedule.
That milestone changed the conversation. It also changed the question we ask ourselves at the end of every Thursday. The old question was “can we get there?” The new question is “what is next?”
The honest answer is: a standalone Mint for More clinic, open full-time, treating as many neighbors as we can reach who do not otherwise have access to care.
Why a standalone clinic, and not just more days at Mint Dental Care
Right now, Mint for More runs inside Mint Dental Care. One day a week, the operatories at the Centerton practice convert into a free care clinic. Dr. McCord and his assistants and admin team handle the day. Four times a year, the entire Mint Dental Care team, every doctor, every hygienist, every assistant, comes in for a Free Dental Day.
That model works. It is also capped.
There is a ceiling on what one practice can carve out of its own week without compromising the care it delivers to its paying patients. We have hit that ceiling. The waitlists from our nonprofit partners are longer than what one Thursday a week can absorb.
A standalone clinic removes the ceiling. It would let us run free care five days a week instead of one. It would create capacity to onboard more nonprofit partners. It would let us treat the patients who are waiting now, and the patients who are not yet on a waitlist because their partner organization has not asked us yet.
It also lets Dr. McCord transition more of his clinical hours from Mint Dental Care to Mint for More over time. That has been the personal goal from the beginning, and it gets closer with every grant and every donor who comes in.
What “as many as we can reach” actually means
Northwest Arkansas has hundreds of thousands of adults without consistent access to dental care. We will not reach all of them. No clinic will. The goal is not to be the answer for the entire region. The goal is to take the patients who are already cycling through emergency rooms, the patients whose partner organizations have nowhere to send them, the patients who are right under every income threshold, and to get them care that actually fixes the problem.
If we can do that for a few thousand more people each year, the math compounds. A patient who gets dentures goes back to work. A patient who has a tooth extracted before it abscesses does not end up in the ER. A child whose first dental visit is positive becomes an adult who keeps coming back.
What it costs
A standalone clinic is not cheap. The building, the operatories, the equipment, the staff. We are early in the planning. The rough order of magnitude is in the millions, and we have started conversations with funders and grantmakers who care about access to care in the region.
Last year, less than $70,000 in grants and donations supported more than $1 million in care delivered, because Mint Dental Care contributes the clinical infrastructure. A standalone clinic changes that ratio. It will need real operational funding because it will not have a paying practice carrying the overhead. We are working through what that looks like with our board, our advisors, and the partners who have stood with us so far.
This is the part of the work that is slower than the clinical day. It is grant cycles. It is donor conversations. It is reading nonprofit financials. It is asking for help in rooms where we used to think we did not belong.
Why we are talking about it now
We are talking about it now because the people who supported the first $1 million should know what their gifts make possible next. And because the people who might consider supporting us deserve to see the road, not just the rear-view.
There is no ribbon cutting yet. There is no architectural rendering. There is a clear-eyed picture of what we want to build, a clinic where every Thursday becomes every day, and a team that has already proven it can deliver more than $3.5 million in donated care since 2016.
The next big milestone is on the calendar. More on that soon.
How you can be part of this
Donate. This is the project that takes us from a one-day-a-week clinic to a full-time one. Give to Mint for More
Talk to us, if you fund or grant in healthcare access. If you work at a foundation, a hospital system, or a regional grantmaker that focuses on access to care in Northwest Arkansas, we would welcome a conversation. Contact us through the contact page.
Follow the work. New stories, photos, and milestones go up here regularly. Read the blog
— The Mint for More Team Bentonville, AR · A 501(c)(3) nonprofit · Powered by Mint Dental Care