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Benjamin Cecil made the trek to a Greensboro church on Saturday in an effort to get some relief.

“I have six teeth that need to be extracted; they’re hurting pretty bad,” said Cecil, a High Point resident.

He was one of about 85 people to get free dental work from volunteer dental professionals at Guilford Baptist Church on Saturday.

Several ministries at the church joined forces to bring the Dental Bus Ministry, a ministry of the N.C. Baptist Men, to the church for the fourth year in a row.

“Our goal here is to treat their spiritual and physical needs,” event organizer and church missions director Rosemary Steed said.

The free clinic was set up to serve people who are in need of dental care but who do not have dental insurance, whether or not they are employed.

“I have a job, but my boss man doesn’t offer dental insurance,” Cecil said.

He was able to have one of his problem teeth removed. A dentist told him it would cost him $2,700 to have all the teeth removed.

Cecil’s story was not unique for the volunteers and professionals at the clinic; he had a dental problem and no insurance to help pay to take care of it.

He was able to see a dentist, but Steed says volunteers had to start turning people away from the clinic at noon.

“We’d love to serve more but we don’t have the resources,” she said.

Steed believes even more people came to the clinic because First Presbyterian Church had to cancel the last day of its two-day free dental clinic because of equipment failure.

Steed and a small cadre of volunteers arranged for local dentists, dental assistants and hygienists to be on hand for the bus ministry’s stop.

“Without the help of all these people, all we have are these beautiful blue and white buses,” driver Douglas Robbins said.

Each 40-foot bus is customized to include two fully equipped dental work stations, X-ray equipment, dental instruments, supplies, generators and its own water supply.

The buses are also equipped with portable hygienist’s chairs to allow some people to be treated off the vehicles.

“We’re able to do cleanings, fillings and extractions,” Robbins said.

“We are pretty much set up to go into an area to relieve pain.”

With the addition of blue tarps and hygienist’s chairs, Sunday school classrooms were used to do cleanings. More serious work was done in the buses.

“That is the physical. For the spiritual, we had people on hand to handle prayer requests and questions about faith and some counseling,” Steed said.

New Testament Bibles were also distributed.

But while the church and representatives from the Baptist Men offered spiritual supplements, people didn’t have to be Christians to receive help.

“This was to help people,” Steed said.

Robbins agreed.

“We don’t care where you go to church, or if you go to church,” he said.

The dental buses are available to any church or organization that can pay the associated costs to have the buses brought from the ministry’s base in Cary.

There is a $200 cost to reserve the buses; mileage from Cary to the setup site has to be paid and there are minimal costs to the organization for every person seen by the dental professionals.

“We’ve set up for churches, Rotary clubs, schools — anyone who needs the bus can call us,” Robbins said.

For the people who were unable to be seen during the clinic, volunteers made sure they left with a list of clinics that offer care at reduced or no cost.

“It broke our hearts that we couldn’t help them here, but we gave them a list of places they can go for the help they need,” Steed said.

Contact Tiffany S. Jones at 373-7157 or tiffany.jones@news-record.com