Smiles Across Minnesota Duluth
The Smiles Across Minnesota – Duluth provides preventive dental services to low-income, uninsured and underinsured children ages three to twelve in the Duluth Public Elementary Schools and Head Start Centers.

The goal of the Smiles Across Minnesota program is to promote oral health awareness and improve systems to deliver oral health care services to Duluth children and is modeled after successful school-based initiatives established in the Twin Cities and elsewhere by Oral Health America’s Smiles Across America program.

Partnering with Delta Dental, Children’s Dental Services and ISD 709, United Way of Greater Duluth seeks to leverage and mobilize community support to provide this cost effective oral health prevention program in Duluth.

Early Childhood Development School Readiness
United Way of Greater Duluth convened a coalition of literacy experts to develop a vision and plan for improving early literacy as an avenue to increased school readiness. Participating members from business, government, education, library, health care and non-profits have successfully developed a three-pronged approach to cultivating a literacy-rich community.

The approach brings home, health care, and community-based strategies together to deliver books and parent education materials into homes of young children, to promote reading as a prescription for success, and to engage the entire community in a culture of literacy.