Kathi Hunger-Sanders, RDH, PHDHP, CSDH

I want to nominate my mom, Kathi Hunger-Sanders for the Heart to Hands award. She has been working as a Dental Hygienist in the dental field for over 42 years. In that time, she spent 20 years working as a certified school dental hygienist in the state of Pennsylvania. She went above and beyond her duties to provide the best possible care for her students while working within her budget allotted by the school. She would coordinate reduced cost care with local dentists for students in need whose parents were unable to afford care and would complete cleanings and screenings for students who were unable to see a dentist regularly. She taught dental lessons to the students to help them understand proper brushing and flossing techniques, how caries form and even how nutrition can affect your teeth.

She left this job only because the certification she had was expiring and she would need to take more college classes to receive her next level certification. Her love for the job never decreased. Even after leaving this job, her first thought was about who is going to take over the care of these children. When she found out that the position would no longer exist in the school district, she was ready to coordinate a way for her to continue to provide cleanings and screenings for the children. She knows the struggles that the children and families face in her school district to receive dental care and she does not want them to have problems or pain for this reason. To her it was no big deal to work so hard for these students, but to the students and families she changed lives.

Kathi always enjoyed working with children. Starting in 1995, she decided to spend the month of February, for Children’s Dental Health Month, providing dental lessons to school-aged children. She would dress in a full Toothfairy outfit and go to different elementary schools to teach lessons on brushing and flossing. She would work to get different companies to donate toothbrushes, toothpaste and prizes for the kids so they would have something to take home with them. After 31 years of being the toothfairy, she still gets dressed up every February and now teaches the children of students she taught lessons to when she first started.

Kathi grew up in a dental family. Her father and brother were both dentists, while her one sister and herself were both dental hygienists. While working with her father she would spend time on her days off going into nursing homes and working with patients that were no longer able to come into the office. She had a mobile unit that she could use to complete routine prophylaxis on these patients while her father would be able to adjust their dentures and partials if they needed. She went out of her way on a regular basis to help patients in any way that they needed. A lot of the patients that she saw became almost like family.

My mother’s compassion for her patients and those who trusted her with their care was unparallelled. This compassion extended through every aspect of her life. If there was someone who needed help, she was the first one to volunteer her time and assistance. Her love for her career and the dental hygiene profession as a whole is what inspired me to become a dental hygienist and use my skills to help others. I am honored to call her a colleague, a friend and more importantly, my mother.