The Children’s Museum of Wilmington Partners with Delta Dental Foundation on Dental Exhibit

DOWNTOWN WILMINGTON, NC – The Children’s Museum of Wilmington (CMoW) is excited to announce it has been awarded a generous grant from the Delta Dental Foundation (DDF) to update its Toothasaurus exhibit. To celebrate the new sponsorship, a Floss Cutting event will take place on July 18th, 2018 at 1 p.m. The community and local media are invited to attend.

From Delta Dental of North Carolina, Curt Ladig (President and CEO), Elaine Loyack (Vice President of Community Engagement and Government Relations) and Nicole Baez (Public Relations Coordinator) will join Jim Karl (CMoW Executive Director) in attendance.

The Toothasaurus exhibit is one of the most popular areas on the CMoW campus. It provides a strong hands-on based learning component and promotes positive children’s dental health and hygiene practices. In the pediatric dental exhibit, children learn about oral health in an unintimidating environment. They can brush the model teeth, learn about the different types of teeth, and then hop into a real dentist chair to examine the teeth of a Tooth-a-Saurus!

"At the Children's Museum of Wilmington we are working to provide educational resources focusing on healthy lifestyle choices and practices,” said Jim Karl, Executive Director of The Children’s Museum of Wilmington. “We think that a modern and engaging dental exhibit is an important component to our success."

“Tooth decay is the most common, chronic childhood disease today, and children miss 51 million hours of school every year due to dental issues,” said Curt Ladig, president and CEO of Delta Dental of North Carolina. “The Delta Dental Foundation’s grant to the Children’s Museum of Wilmington will help provide the oral health education that children need in order to show up for school healthy and ready to learn.”

Renovations are currently underway and were also supported by funds received from the International Paper Foundations. The Museum is also happy to announce the sponsorship of the exhibit by Dimock, Weinberg & Cherry DDS, Coastal Carolina Pediatric Dentistry. The sponsorship will help insure the exhibit content and related programming will remain current and impactful for years to come. Please check CMoW’s social media channels for updates on the progress of the exhibit.

About Delta Dental of North Carolina: Delta Dental of North Carolina is a nonprofit dental service corporation created in 1970 to provide dental benefits throughout the state. Its mission is to improve the oral health of the communities it serves. It does so by providing affordable access to oral health care with the largest network of providers, including two out of every three dentists, in North Carolina. www.deltadentalnc.com

About the Delta Dental Foundation: The Delta Dental Foundation is a nonprofit, charitable organization established in 1980, which serves as the philanthropic arm of Delta Dental of Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and North Carolina. The foundation’s goals are to support education and research for the advancement of dental science, and to promote the oral health of the public through education and service activities, particularly for those with special needs. In 2018, the Delta Dental Foundation awarded 19 grants totaling $65,800 to North Carolina nonprofits offering direct oral health services or education. For more information, visit www.deltadentalnc.com.

About The Children’s Museum of Wilmington: The Children’s Museum of Wilmington is a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization that provides a safe and fun place where children can actively learn through creative and imaginative play. Comprised of three historic downtown Wilmington properties, the Museum offers 17,000 sqft and four floors of hands-on exhibits for children ages 0-10. Additionally, the Museum offers daily programs, grant funded community outreach, and special monthly events. For more information on everything the Museum has to offer, please visit www.playwilmington.org.