Marsha Larrabee, Director, Calaveras Children's Dental Partnership
Nominated by: John Brophy, County Superintendent of Schools, Calaveras County Office

For the last ten years, Marsha has been the driving force behind the Calaveras Children’s Dental Project – a program to improve the oral health of the children in Calaveras County.  During this time, she has written numerous grants, pulled various agencies and community groups together to work cooperatively on the program, enlisted the services of numerous local and regional dentists and agencies, provided oral health screenings and scalants to thousands of young children, and found low cost restorative services for the children in our county.  Her work has allowed children to come to school pain free for the first time in years, helped improved their learning and test scores, and given them the chance to have their teeth develop normally.  She is truly a champion to the school administrators, dental community, support agencies, and thousands of children in Calaveras County.

Calaveras County is a small, rural county with approximately 45,000 residents 50 miles east of Stockton.  Dental services are limited for poor families and the nearest clinic that accepts DentiCal payments is in Stockton.  For many of our parents, who do not have transportation or money for gas, this presents a barrier to treatment.  Because the majority of jobs in Calveras County are service oriented, and there are few manufacturing jobs, dental insurance is almost non-existent except for those who work in County government of school positions.

Marsha is a registered dental hygienist who has practiced with local dentist offices for many years.  However, when the Calaveras Children’s Dental Project was formed ten years ago, she took over as the director of the project.  She and another hygienist have visited every preschool and elementary school site in the county to provide dental screenings to thousands of children, as well as fluoride treatments and dental varnish applications to prevent future decay.

Despite hard economic times when state and local budgets are limited or reduced, Marsha has successfully written grants to various state agencies and medical foundations to support the work of the project in partnership with the Calaveras County Superintendent of Schools.  Our First 5 agency regularly contracts for her services and looks to Marsha as the expert on oral health issues.  She has also reached out to neighboring counties and has partnered with them to provide services to their children as well.  And, most recently, she has worked with the Me-Wuk Tribal clinic in Tuolumne County to bring dental services to Calaveras County through a local dentist so all children will have access to a provider who accepts DentiCal payments. 

Article posted on 1/6/08