Dentist Announces ‘Halloween Candy Buyback’

by Heather McLaughlin

With Halloween just around the corner, you can already visualize your kids looking cute as buttons in their Spiderman and Princess outfits – holding an enormous bag of candy.

In an effort to make his (and his patient’s) life easier, Dr. Nelson Smith, a dentist in an Ohio town has decided to ‘buy back’ candy for $1.00 a pound at his local office. (He’s not asking kids to turn ALL of it in, just the ones they don’t want ) Dr. Smith will send all of the candy he collects to soldiers stationed in Iraq. He’ll be weighing out candy for 2 hours on November 1, 2007.

Smith says he got the idea after taking a course in Columbus from Chris Kammer, a Wisconsin dentist who started a similar project a couple years ago.

“It’s the first time anyone’s tried it in Fremont,” Once Smith collects the candy, it should serve a good cause aside from the obvious benefits to local children’s teeth. Smith said he’ll be packaging the candy and shipping it to soldiers in Iraq. All Smith asks is that the children don’t take a bite and put a piece back in with the rest of their haul.

The candy must be unopened.

Scott Green, a marketing director for Kammer’s office in Middleton, Wis., said their program has been successful and dentists in several states are now participating as well. He said last year, Kammer’s office received about 250 pounds of candy from 71 children.

I think that this is a cool program that more dentists should participate in. That could have came in handy when I was of trick-or-treating age.

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