Adopt a Vet Dental Program

The Adopt a Vet Dental Program was founded in April 2010 in Reno by Wayne and Linda Haigh, after Linda found sixty low-income veterans in a subsidised-housing complex nearby and learned from them that roughly ninety percent of American veterans do not qualify for dental care through the VA. The program is a volunteer network: it recruits Nevada dentists to provide pro-bono care to veterans who fall through the VA gap, and raises the operational and lab costs so those clinicians can practice without cost to themselves or the patient. Sixteen years on, more than 150 Nevada dentists have joined the roster and the program has delivered over $9 million in donated care to more than 1,800 veterans.

The program operates as a coordinating nonprofit rather than a clinic: dental care is delivered in Nevada dentists’ own private practices, and AAVD handles patient referral, benefits verification, appointment coordination, and payment of the lab and materials costs the volunteer clinicians would otherwise absorb. Eligibility runs to veterans of all service eras who fall below defined income thresholds and do not qualify for VA dental benefits. From 2013 to 2019 the program operated as a project of the Nevada Dental Association’s nonprofit arm; since 2019 it has again been an independent 501(c)(3), governed by its own board and funded by grants, dental-association support, and private donations.

AAVD’s operating model is unusual for a dental-care nonprofit: rather than run its own clinic, it distributes care across the private-practice network of the state’s dental association, so that a Reno veteran needing extractions and a partial denture is seen in a familiar neighborhood practice by a dentist who has volunteered rather than in a specialized charity facility. The founder Wayne Haigh received the Nevada Governor’s award for the program in 2017; the Newman’s Own and Fisher House Foundation had already named AAVD to their annual awards in 2014, citing what they called a creative approach to closing the veterans’ dental-care gap.