KANSAS CITY, Mo. — When you walk into the building at 5416 NE Antioch Rd. in the Northland, it looks like your average dentist office.
But the office is a little unique. It's all apart of a nonprofit, called LevelUp Kids Inc.
"It provides healthcare services to low-income children in the Clay and Platte county area who are unable to access services due to their insurance status, because we have very few Medicaid providers in the Northland, or they don't have health insurance at all," LevelUp Kids Executive Director, Christy May said.
May says the need for the services have grown over the years.
They see about 4,000 children a year, providing dental services to families for free.
"There was a study that was done that there were very few pediatric dental providers in the Northland, particularly for low-income families, and transportation is a barrier for a lot of families," May said. "If they're sharing the car, the mom and dad are sharing the car or don't have any reliable vehicle to get children out of school in the middle of the day and take them to the dentist."
The organization provides comprehensive dental care, from screening and fillings to extractions and crowns.
While they've done dental work for years, in 2020, LevelUp Kids has another vision in mind.
"We started seeing children in the school," May said. "We're doing screenings. We're helping the school nurses do a really thorough screening so we can identify kids who might have any sort of vision deficiency."
They'll be providing vision care in schools like Maplewood Elementary, helping students like Tyshona Hill and Leeland Sherwood.
"When the lights in the classroom and I'm on my iPad, my eyes get tired when I'm reading so my eyes kind of give out," Sherwood said.
"I was having trouble with seeing properly," Hill said.
Through on-site screenings and exams, they're able to walk away with a prescription for free glasses.
"It feels great," Hill said. "It's like a way where it's for free and it feels great because most of the time a lot of people need it, but they never have enough money for it."
What was once blurry at times for Hill, is now clear.
"I'll be able to see better, think better and learn better," Hill said.
LevelUp Kids' goal is to screen 15,000 children this year with their vision program and provide around 1,500 kids free glasses and exams.
