On a hot August day in 2004, Lyndal Holmes, DDS, visited a downtown classroom building from his past and stumbled upon an important part of his future. A 1965 graduate of the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Dentistry and a faculty member at the school for 35 years, Dr. Holmes had attended three years of dental school classes in the building that now houses City Union Mission’s men’s shelter. His father and brother-in-law also attended classes there, graduating in 1928 and 1956.

Dr. Holmes, who knew a homeless shelter was being operated out of the building, took a tour of the Mission and visited with staff members who told him about the guests’ needs for medical care, including dental work. 

Struck by the breadth and depth of help available to guests at the Mission and unable to ignore the needs of the men he saw that day, the investigation of old stomping grounds sparked a partnership between Dr. Holmes, Kansas City dentists and City Union Mission that has resulted in gifts of dental care worth more than $150,000 to about 250 Mission guests over three years.

“I was a little excited when I walked out [of the Mission] that afternoon,” Dr. Holmes said. “I could see myself there 40 years ago. I could see my dad in there. There was something I could do.”

Rather than setting up a clinic in the Mission and asking dentists to volunteer to staff it, Dr. Holmes planned to triage guests in need of dental care in the Mission’s existing medical clinic. He would then match each guest’s need with an appropriate care provider in the metro area and work with Mission staff to get the guest to his appointment. Dentists who volunteered to provide care would see Mission patients in their own clinics and use their own equipment, supplies and staff.

A Vietnam War veteran staying at the Mission made an especially strong impression on Dr. Holmes, who is also a Vietnam War veteran. Talking with the guest, Dr. Holmes realized that not only had they been in Vietnam at the same time, but that the guest had been stationed on Monkey Mountain, not far from where Dr. Holmes spent the war. Because communication between stations was poor or nonexistent, Dr. Holmes remembered that oftentimes, no matter who he was trying to get on the line, he always got Monkey Mountain.

 “Here was this guy who had been there, and he had no teeth at all,” Dr. Holmes said. “I just kept thinking he and I were two of the fortunate ones who made it back [from the war]. And I think life had treated me better than it had treated him. I thought maybe I could do something to help. I could make dentures for this man, give him a smile and some personality back.”

Dr. Holmes wrote letters to hundreds of dentists in the Kansas City area, many of whom were his former classmates or students. He shared with them what the former UMKC classroom building had become and his vision for providing dental care to Mission guests.

In his letters, Dr. Holmes asked interested dentists how many patients they could volunteer to take on in a year. He also shared his appeal at several dental meetings in the Kansas City area. The response amazed him: Sixty-five dentists, including oral surgeons, endodontists, periodontists and other general dentists, agreed to see Mission guests and provide their services free of charge. One dentist said she would see “as many as it takes” to fill the need. A dental laboratory in Blue Springs, Mallow-Tru, agreed to donate denture fabrication and other laboratory work to the participating dentists.

“It works out beautifully, because they can give better care in their own offices and it’s just like one more patient coming through,” he said. “I know that some of them thought ‘I don’t want some bum off the street sitting in my waiting room,’ but I explain to them that we’re working with people who are at many times very educated, very appreciative, very nice people who have just had a series of bad luck.”

The program, which just celebrated its third year, began providing care on February 14, 2005. Ongoing dental care is made available to long-term guests enrolled in the Mission’s Christian Life program. Emergency care is also provided to any Mission guests who are in pain. Guests at the Mission’s farm in Warsaw, Mo., can receive dental care from four area dentists who donate their time.

Less than a year after beginning the dental program, Dr. Holmes brought members of his 1965 graduating class, in town for their 40th reunion, for a tour of the old classroom building.
 “It was like stepping 40 years into the past. We just worked our rears off in that building,” he said.

 After the tour, Dr. Holmes hosted a luncheon and made an appeal to his former classmates. He left the luncheon with thousands of dollars worth of commitments to treat patients from the Mission. Today, a growing fund from the class of 1965 allows Dr. Holmes to send Mission guests to the UMKC School of Dentistry’s dental clinic for treatment for acute problems.

Dr. Holmes’ role at the Mission is best described as a catalyst. He saw a need that he could fill and did what he knows how to do well: organize people.

“Something made me want to go back down to 10th and Troost and look at the building for historical purposes,” Dr. Holmes said.

“That part of town seemed to draw me back in. I don’t know what precipitated my involvement exactly – my history with the building, meeting the young man from Monkey Mountain or just how lucky we all are. It all came together.”

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