National Guard invades Wellesley Dental Group's community-wide CANDY DRIVE on Friday, Nov 8th at 10am

It all started with local dentists, Drs. Ali & Ali, asking their young patients to donate their excessive Halloween candy in exchange for $1 to protect their teeth. Today, this gesture has grown into a community-wide effort involving schools, the police department, local retailers, AND for the first time, our very own MA National Guard (Humvee and all), as well as neighboring towns who collect and donate extra Halloween candy and write notes of thanks to U.S. troops overseas.

“Our community is too generous. Kids come home with pillowcases full of candy. We’re all for celebrating the holiday, but no one needs that much candy,” said Dr. Femina Ali, of Wellesley Dental Group. “But for our troops, who are so far away, M&Ms and the handwritten cards children send are a little treat that remind them of home.”

Each year the drive gets bigger and bigger. Last year, Wellesley Dental Group collected a “wall of candy which weighed 5260 pounds,” explains Dr. Ali. This year, they anticipate collecting over 6,000 pounds of candy to send to our troops. Everyone is invited to attend the press event on Friday, Nov. 8th at 10 a.m., which will also serve as the official candy send-off in a U-Haul. 

Weymouth-based CarePacks, a non-profit organization that sends care packages to troops overseas, will handle shipping the cards and candy to Afghanistan and Iraq. What a wonderful tie-in to Veteran's Day. Join us!