Ok, I admit it; I had good old fashion writer’s block this morning. Last week my blog headline were lyrics from a song so I thought, if I went through my catalogue of music I could find a song to get me going again. I actually went to my list of music on my spotify account and started looking at songs alphabetically. But that isn’t how I came up with the song..it just came to me.
I liked my rock n roll big time when I was in college. Alvin Lee was the guitarist for ‘Ten Years After’ and I’d Love to Change the World may be their biggest hit. It was released in 1971 and today is still a song I love to listen to.
But today, when I listen to the chorus, which is “I’d love to change the world, but I don’t know what to do, so I’ll leave it up to you” means so much more to me than just being a song. It speaks of the frustration that I often have wanting to make a difference on a bigger scale than I do. I am frustrated that more people don’t understand that we can take an active role in our well being and not depend on medicine to get us better. I want people to know, from the bottom of my heart, that preventive dentistry is also preventive health care since there are so many substantiated links between oral disease and many other health issues like heart disease and diabetes to name a few.
Today, I am also very satisfied in that I am doing my part within my own community to make a difference, a change so to speak. Our dental office, as part of an organization of dentists called the Crown Council, participated in the Smiles for Life charity campaign. Participants were able to get teeth whitening at a discount fee and all monies raised went to children’s charities. Our office’s local designated charity was the Hollywood Wilshire YMCA’s program at the Wilshire Crest School (just east of our office on Olympic by about 1 mile) that provides physical education as well as nutritional and well being education. Our office just got the check to give them….$3190.00 And now I get to serve of the Board of the YMCA.
There is another local program that we have partnered with this year. Launch LA is a local nonprofit organization that provides avenues for developing artists to interact throughout the Los Angeles communities. LAUNCH LA strives to engage a broad cross section of Angelinos in cultural events that foster mutual understanding and creative expression. One of their main events is Tarfest, and Launch LA’s founder, James Panozzo, has done another great job this year. This past Friday night was the opening of a juried art exhibition at the Korean Cultural Center which runs through September 29th. Next Sunday, September 25th at the La Brea Tar Pits will be an all day music event with food trucks. This is a FREE event so come on out and support the Miracle Mile at Tarfest 2011.