Morrison’s Food and Nutrition teams on the West Coast joined forces to support dental wellness in underserved communities, collecting thousands of essential care items. Teams from Southern and Central California, along with Nevada, gathered more than 3,000 supplies including toothbrushes, toothpaste, floss, and mouthwash.
The initiative, called “May the Tooth Be with You,” was launched by the Morrison team at Los Angeles General Medical Center and ran throughout May in recognition of National Dental Care Month. Fourteen sites across the region took part, including homeless and women’s shelters in Las Vegas and major hospitals in Southern California such as Harbor-UCLA and Olive View-UCLA Medical Center. Long Beach Medical Center led the way, winning the donation challenge by collecting the most supplies.
“This new project helps people in underserved communities improve their health and wellness,” says Kim Kilpatrick, Regional Director of Operations. “Good dental care can help prevent disease and ties directly into our overall goal of delivering healthy outcomes for everyone in our communities.”
Earlier this year, Regional Vice President Joyce Kruesopon put forth a call to action for her management teams to develop and implement new community service projects. A vote was put forth, and plans began for this new dental health project.
Senior Executive Chef Kham Ta Aca of Los Angeles General Medical Center led the project. In preparation for the drive, he and his team used their hospital’s communications channels to spread the word about this initiative. Donation boxes were placed in high-traffic locations in various health systems in the region. He said that he learned a lot from this experience, including the fact that the hospital where he works has a dental clinic.
“We made a point to deliver our donations in person to the dental staff at our hospital. They were extremely grateful and thanked us for considering them for the donations. It was pretty incredible to connect in that way,” said Chef Ta Aca.
The team was able to donate over 650 dental care items to the dental staff at LA General. Many of their guests are low-income or unhoused, so the donations were extremely welcome and came as a surprise.
“We found out from the clinical staff that dental hygiene is often overlooked when people look to provide donations,” says Kilpatrick. “We were told no one has ever made donations of dental supplies before, so they were pleasantly surprised to receive the donations.”
Kilpatrick hopes to expand the campaign in 2026 with the hope that additional Morrison hospitals within and outside of the region will join in.
