15 years of volunteering for Give Kids a Smile

Twice a year, St. Louis University hosts Give Kids a Smile, a dental clinic for children. SLU’s Center for Advanced Dental Education hosts the clinic on Fridays and Saturdays, with busloads of kids coming for dental care on Fridays and parents making appointments for Saturdays.  

On Thursday, February 12 and Friday, February 13, 2026, Holly Steben and Travis Tipsword volunteered to set up Eaglesoft software and helped more than 300 kids get needed dental care.

It’s something members of the Patterson Technology Center have been doing for more than 15 years.  

“Travis and I are not dentally trained – we were there for the software.” Holly said. “We helped set up four laptops. We helped set up their mini network to be able to run Eaglesoft on. We set up printers at each of the computers. And then we helped complete walkouts, handing out a soft sack lunch along with after-treatment plan instructions.” 

A lot happens on these two days.  

“Kids start with cleanings and exams.” Holly said. “Then they get X-rays to see if they need any work done. From there, they move on to the restorative part of the process – fillings or sealants or extractions. If they needed something that wasn’t possible during their exam, the dentist would then recommend the Smile Factory – a continuation of this program. They also did orthodontics. It was a really great clinic that they put on. I know we’ve had other Patterson employees go down and help before. This was the first time Travis and I had the opportunity to do it.” 

“I hope, and I know Travis does as well, that we get to go and do it again.” Holly said. “It was just very – I don’t know – humbling almost to be able to go down and see something like that, to be able to experience that. It meant a lot to those kids.” 

Travis added, “Just seeing all those kids come through and they had just so many volunteers that just were there to just walk kids around back and forth. I was just standing there, and this little guy came up and shook my hand. I think he was a little jokester, but he was just funny. He just came and shook my hand and walked out the door.”