When asked about her practice model, Dr. Robin Jones replied that she is “a general dentist specializing in ‘community dentistry.’ It’s a specialty I created.”

From day one, her sense of community shaped her private practice. For nearly three decades, Dental Village PLLC – named for the concept that it takes a village to raise a child – has operated in the Tacoma Mall area. There she has provided dental services for mostly low-income Medicaid- and Medicare-eligible patients from a broad range of cultural backgrounds. Those patients include otherwise underserved families, veterans, the elderly, unhoused people, and children and adults with special needs and disabilities.

“Since the inception of my private practice, I have also provided free dentistry for adults and children who did not have any dental insurance,” Jones said. “They would come to my practice in pain with a toothache and no dental coverage, which led me to think about starting a nonprofit to better meet their needs.”

That nonprofit, the Children’s International Health Relief (CIHR) was founded by Jones in 2001 to address health disparities and promote oral health equity by providing access to care. CIHR’s mission is to improve the healthcare of needy families in United States and abroad.

Before going into more detail about the important work being done by CIHR staff and volunteers, it’s important to understand where Jones is coming from.

Jones grew up in Tacoma’s Hilltop neighborhood, the eldest of three children raised by a single mother. Her mother had moved the family from Ohio to be closer to her extended family; that family and their neighborhood church became a defining force for Jones. She recalls family dinner parties and barbecues where her mother would feed not only her extended family but also neighbors, church members, friends and friends-of-friends. No one was turned away.

Their home also became a place for family and friends who needed somewhere to stay. Jones’ mother babysat young children so their parents could work, cared for the elderly, and ran the church’s free breakfast program to help feed the less fortunate in the Hilltop community.

Jones and her siblings helped in all these efforts. She credits these experiences, along with her experience in her church, in helping her get where she is today.

“The Black church experience gave me confidence, taught me self-love and developed my leadership skills,” she said. “I stand on the shoulders of my ancestors who sacrificed and paved the way for me to be here and for my success,” she said.

While attending Tacoma’s Wilson High School, Jones took a career class and decided to pursue a career in dentistry.

“At that time, I thought it would be more fun to work in dentistry as opposed to medicine, because a dentist did not deal with death and dying and had the weekends off,” she recalled.

After majoring in biology at Seattle University, Jones enrolled in dental school at Meharry Medical College, a historically Black college in Nashville. Meharry was founded in 1876 – a time when Black people were denied access to public hospitals and clinics because of racism and segregation – and its mission is to worship God through service to mankind.

Jones was the only Meharry student from the Pacific Northwest, which led to some interesting and amusing exchanges with her fellow students, who would often confuse Washington state with “that other Washington.”

“I would tell my classmates and instructors that we were the only Black family in town or that Tacoma was something out of a Western movie. Surprisingly, most of the time they believed me,” she said, adding that in the days before Google, internet access in the palm of your hand, and ready access to social media, it was much more difficult for them to check out her stories.

Jones recalls the faculty at Meharry being friendly – one instructor would routinely tell her he was eating a Washington apple for lunch that day. Still, “The professors were old school, commanded respect and did not play around,” Jones said. For instance, there was a strict dress code for clinical rotations: Business attire, with male students required to wear a white shirt and a tie.

Jones summed up her dental school experience by saying, “At Meharry, I experienced Black excellence.”

Upon graduation from dental school, Jones completed a general practice residency at Woodhull Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York, followed by a fellowship in geriatric medicine and dentistry at the University of Medicine & Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) & School of Osteopathic Medicine in Stratford, New Jersey. With an eye on an academic career as a dental research scientist, she then took on a series of positions that combined her passions for dentistry, medicine, research and teaching both dental and medical students (see box). Even as her career path changed and the beckoning of her hometown prompted a return to the Puget Sound region, she maintained that strong interest in and commitment to hospital dentistry for both adult and pediatric patients.

“I have always enjoyed hospital dentistry,” she said. “I’m proud of the fact that I have maintained hospital privileges with the MultiCare Health System – both Tacoma General Hospital and Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital – here in Tacoma for the past 27 years.”

As Jones built her private practice, she saw a need and was inspired to create a nonprofit to meet it.

“I felt it was the right thing to do. I believe that we come to this earth in the physical form to be a vehicle for God and to do the work to make the world a better place. We all are just passing through. When you give to others, you give to yourself,” she said.

In her case, that giving meant developing plans and soliciting donations of equipment to create CIHR. Much like Jones’ contributions through her private practice, the program focuses on Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) patients who are low income and either uninsured or under-insured. Most CIHR clients have been denied care from other dentists, have severe dental needs, and have nowhere else to go. They are not charged fees for service, co-pays or deductibles.

CIHR’s initiative was its Dental Village Outreach Program, a mobile dental clinic that provides free care at community events and facilities. Over the years, the mobile dental clinic has treated low-income patients at a number of cultural festivals, including Seattle’s Black Wall Street Festival, Tacoma’s Juneteenth Festival, and local tribal powwows. It has also made appearances at back-to-school fairs, health carnivals, parks, churches, rehabilitation centers, shelters, other tribal events, and even in a Walmart parking lot.

Additionally, CIHR has for many years been the fiscal sponsor of the Hilltop Healthy Kids & Family Carnival, an event Jones chairs. Since 2010, the carnival has been held annually in February, and brings together community partners to promote healthier lifestyles to multicultural at-risk urban youth and families in the Hilltop community. It focuses on promoting four key pillars of health to children and their families: dental/medical health, nutrition, fitness and mental/emotional health (including safety). The message is delivered through t-shirts, games, toy giveaways, a juice bar, free healthy food, and public service announcements. Free dental cleanings, blood pressure checks and diabetes screenings are among the health services offered at the carnival.

In August 2022, CIHR’s Dental Village Outreach Program expanded to include an office-based free dental clinic. This expansion made CIHR unique in offering both mobile and fixed-location clinics for low-income patients. The office clinic is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday, and has two full-time paid dental assistants, one full-time paid receptionist, and Dr. Jones as a full-time dentist. Care is taken to make the clinic inviting to all patients.

“Our staff is multicultural, fluent in Spanish, led by a Black dentist, and trained to provide culturally competent dental care with compassion,” Jones said, adding that the demand for services continues to grow.

Even a volatile real estate market couldn’t slow down Jones and her team. At the beginning of this year, both the free dental clinic and her private practice were forced to move to a new facility, also in the Tacoma Mall neighborhood, because the building where she had leased space for many years was sold to developers. Fortunately, Russell, her significant other, had the talents to build out the new space and keep things moving forward.

“Currently, our phone is ringing off the hook. We are now referring low-income people with Medicaid coverage who call with emergencies to the community clinics so we can focus on providing services to the uninsured population,” Jones said. “We also have a waiting list of uninsured immigrants needing services and another waiting list of disabled children and adults needing hospital general anesthesia.”

As a result of this demand, the clinic is seeking additional volunteer dentists and dental assistants to support and expand the program.

Having spent so many years in both private practice and CIHR’s free dental clinics, Jones has treated a wide variety of patients. These days, it’s not unusual for her to be caring for second or even third generation family members of her earliest patients. But when asked about some of her most memorable patients, she immediately recalled the oldest patient she has ever treated.

He was a Black man named Otis Clark, aka “Dad,” who had been born in 1903. He was 103 years old when Jones met him, and he still had virtually a full complement of teeth, with only two missing. Clark was a walking history book, and a Black Wall Street survivor. He survived the Tulsa, Oklahoma race massacre, the worst racial massacre in American history, which took place May 31-June 1, 1921. Over the course of those two days, a white mob attacked the Tulsa’s Greenwood District, which was known as Black Wall Street, murdered hundreds of Black people and burned the entire community to the ground.

After surviving the riot as well as confinement in an internment camp, Clark moved to California, where later in life he became a Hollywood butler for stars like Charlie Chapman, Clark Gable and Joan Crawford. He told Jones that the secret to his longevity was that he did not take medications, took daily warm baths, and ate watermelon rinds.

“Dad” passed away in 2012 at the ripe old age of 109. There are many stories about him on the internet, and Jones wrote one called “History in His Smile.” She honors his legacy every year by ensuring that the CIHR mobile clinic participates in the annual Seattle Black Wall Street Festival sponsored by Seattle-Africatown.

As the demand for CIHR services continues to grow, Jones would like to focus more of her time on fundraising for the nonprofit and scale back the clinical time she spends as a dental provider. Ideally, she would like to secure funding to hire a full-time young dentist with the desire and compassion to work with under-resourced and under-served communities. That doesn’t mean she has any intention of retiring anytime soon.

“I recently was one of 10 Black female nonprofit leaders to receive a Rest & Repair Award from the Washington Women’s Foundation. The award celebrates significant contributions that Black women have made to Washington communities. The award consisted of a nonrestricted financial award given with the stipulation that I slow down and take some time for myself to rest, repair and heal,” Jones said.

She doesn’t know exactly what that down time will look like, but the odds are that she will be back making connections throughout the community soon.

“There’s an old African proverb: he who eats alone, chokes alone,” Jones said.

There’s not much chance Jones will ever find herself eating alone.

CIHR

You can learn more about volunteering or donating by calling (253) 476-0556 or visiting the website at  
www.childrenshealthrelief.org.

Hilltop Healthy Kids & Families Carnival

The next carnival is scheduled for Saturday, Feb. 22, 2025, 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. Sponsoring organizations’ and community partners’ logos are printed on carnival t-shirts, fliers, banners, and the event program. To discuss sponsorship and volunteer opportunities, use the contact information above.