Organizations like Smile Train, TeamSmile, and Dental Lifeline Network on hand at DS World and helping deliver oral care and smiles to those in need.
By Stan Goff, Senior Managing Editor
World Smile Day is Friday, October 3, 2025, and last week’s Dentsply Sirona World 25 event in Las Vegas acknowledged the special day, but the dental manufacturer also did plenty to continue to spread smiles around the globe.
World Smile Day, celebrated each year on the first Friday in October, is a day devoted to smiles and acts of kindness. First celebrated in 1999, the day seeks to reclaim the original meaning and intent of the iconic smiley face image by encouraging people to act kindly and make a person smile.
At DS World, Smile Train had a booth with a wall set up where attendees could write kind messages and post on the Happy World Smile Day wall. The booth was next to the TeamSmile (teamsmile.org) exhibit, another great organization that helps provide smiles for those in need.
Together Dentsply Sirona and Smile Train are improving access to oral health and building a brighter future for children and families affected by cleft worldwide. Since this partnership began, it has enabled more than 5,500 surgeries for cleft-affected patients in 18 countries, benefited by using digital technologies to make treatments more efficient and appropriate for children. State-of-the-art centers for cleft treatment have been developed across Asia and Latin America, and a collaboration with the World Dental Federation (FDI) brought about the first-ever global cleft treatment workflows and online courses.
On Thursday, 18-year-old cleft patient Nasly was on hand in Las Vegas to share her emotional story. The Columbia girl and her team of dentists and doctors explained how her long journey led her to today, where she has new confidence, a great smile, and to the point where she sang to a group of teary-eyed guests in a conference room. Like so many children born with cleft issues, Nasly has undergone many surgeries along the way to help her eat, breathe better, speak and basically attempt to live a normal childhood. With the help of many volunteers around the world, and support from companies like Dentsply Sirona, many children and their families are transformed.
To see Nasly smile and to hear a couple of her surgeons speak at DS World about just how rewarding their jobs are, brought many in the room to reach for Kleenex.
Susannah “Susie” Schaefer, president & CEO of Smile Train, says the organization has been doing great things for 26 years now and that seeing children’s lives improved dramatically never gets old.
“We are incredibly grateful for the partnership with Dentsply Sirona,” she said. “Our goal is to see to it that anyone with cleft anywhere in the world has access to quality care. We work with local clinicians to treat patients in their own communities. Just bringing the [Primescan] scanners to low resource areas is such a big deal. I still get emotional. You have to have your hearts in this.”
Schaefer and Dentsply Sirona’s Andrea Frohning, senior vice president, chief human resources officer, sat down with Dentistry Today editors for a video interview at DS World.
TeamSmile Executive Director John McCarthy and Clair Diones, VP marketing of Dental Lifeline Network, also filmed videos with us in Las Vegas. Make sure to check back at dentistrytoday.com to check out these interviews soon.
With World Smile Today just around around the corner, remember to be kind, share a smile, and be grateful for the many people around the globe who do their part to ensure as many people as possible can smile as much as possible.
