Dental Care for the Deserving
When the Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest NJ inquired in 2019 whether any regional dentists would be willing to provide free dental care for Holocaust survivors, Howard Drew, a faculty member at Rutgers School of Dental Medicine, quickly replied. The son of parents who survived the Holocaust, Drew RSDM’82 created a fund to start a program at the dental school that has allowed him to honor the legacy of his parents—his 95-year-old mother is alive and well—and other Holocaust survivors. Many of them—an estimated 80,000 nationwide—lacked food and medical care as children, leading to a lifetime of compromised health, including dental problems. Students, residents, and faculty get the chance to care for an underserved population and learn about issues that face survivors, as well as being trained by the federation and Jewish Family Service of Central New Jersey on providing person-centered trauma-informed care.