Madison (IN) dentist Ben Canida became the Grinch Dentist who stole Halloween this week -- sort of.
The Indianapolis Star reported (click here for story)that Canida dressed up as a giant tube of toothpaste and paid kids to turn in their Halloween candy. It's a cute idea, but . . .
Some of my best childhood memories -- and even my best memories as a parent -- are dressing up and marching door-to-door on Halloween, then at night's end upending the bag of candy searching for bite-size Snickers and mini Reese's Cups.
Surely, a once-a-year stash of candy does more good for a kid's soul than turning hard candy into hard cash.
Steve, very enjoyable website! I appreciate that the story about the candy caught your attention. Most adults equate candy with expressing love, but that vision would change if you spent some time with a lot of kids in the dental office. It seems that the one day festivals get extended so that every day of the year is Christmas, Easter, and Halloween combined, and washed down with soft drinks. Our message was that you don't have to eat it all---that the tooth fairy not only comes to our office, but will also visit your house at appropriate occasions to whisk away the excess candy after you have gleaned your favorites. We tried to give a lasting visual, and hope that it created some vision for better health for lots of kids. We had fun. Hope that you see some fun in it too!
Posted by: Bob Canida | February 08, 2010 at 11:40 PM
Nice plan on halloween. You're able to help the kids, promote cleaner teeth while still keeping it fun. Sad though the kids don't like it.
Posted by: dentist | December 15, 2011 at 07:24 AM