Dr. Phillips and the team are passionate about giving back to the community. We have multiple events throughout the year that allow us to meet people and have some fun while providing valuable services to those in need.
Halloween Candy Buy Back Program & Party with the Pumpkins
One of our biggest charitable events is the annual Halloween Candy Buy Back Program, in conjunction with Operation Gratitude, where we buy back excess Halloween candy from local kids and then ship it overseas to the troops. A few weeks before this, St. James Parish hosts a huge community trick-or-treating event called Party with the Pumpkins. Every year, we join many other local businesses at the St. James Parish Welcome Center in distributing goodies, hundreds of balloons, and t-shirts to a massive crowd of local kids. It’s always a blast, and a great opportunity to introduce kids and parents to the Halloween Candy Buy Back Program.
Our "station” at St. James Parish’s “Party with the Pumpkins” was loaded with goodies for trick-or-treaters while promoting the Halloween Candy Buy Back Program
Starting the day after Halloween, participants are invited to bring in their leftover, unopened candy. They receive $1 per pound of candy, a Dr. Fresh Firefly light-up toothbrush, and they’re automatically entered in a drawing for a Nintendo DS handheld gaming device. Kids are also encouraged to write letters to the troops, which are shipped along with the candy. Parents deserve treats, too, so when they bring their kids to the office with the candy, they are encouraged to enter in a drawing to win their choice of a Sonicare toothbrush or free whitening kit.
This program has been a very big success for us and brings in hundreds of pounds of candy for the troops each year.
Dr. Phillips hands out goodies and Halloween Candy Buy Back balloons to trick-or-treaters at St. James Parish's “Party with the Pumpkins.”
Feast for Families of St. James Parish
This year, we launched our first annual a food drive to assist the St. James Parish Department of Human Resources and local churches in providing Thanksgiving dinners for deserving families. Some of these St. James Parish families had fallen on economic hard times, some were displaced by a tragic apartment fire – all could were in need of a little kindness.
Dr. Phillips and Matherne’s Supermarket teamed up to provide the turkeys, and we asked patients, Facebook friends, and the community-at-large to drop off non-perishable side items to complete a fabulous feast for 25 families.
Dentistry from the Heart
On April 21, we will be hosting a Dentistry from the Heart event. Dentistry from the Heart is a national non-profit organization dedicated to providing free dental care to those who need it. We’re proud to offer this service to deserving people in our River Parishes community.
We’re very excited about this event, and will share more information as the planning process progresses.
