"I had been waiting because I couldn't afford it," patient Rick Thompson said.
Thompson is raving about the dental work he received at the UTHealth School of Dentistry on Saturday, courtesy of the Texas Dental Association Smiles Foundation.
"This (tooth), had a root canal right here; came back and they gave me my partial," Thompson said.
As part of a two-day event, Texas dentists performed procedures for free, focusing on the uninsured and under-served.
"Root canals, fillings, fluoride, varnishes," said Margo Melchor with the UTHealth School of Dentistry.
"The gratitude we see in the faces is priceless to me," said Dr. Don Lutes with the Texas Dental Association Smiles Foundation.
"I think it's a Godsend," Thompson said.
It's a sentiment we heard over and over among the patients -- more than a thousand of them -- who were helped in Houston this week.
These events take place throughout Texas, and since 2001, the Texas Dental Association Smiles Foundation says it has helped 27,000 dental patients.
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