By Laura Hand
Tuesday, October 28, 2008 at 7:47 p.m.
As you walk into Dr. Joe Catania's Lyncourt office, you're met by a talking skeleton---the first indication that it's anything but a normal dentist's office, at least at Halloween time.
The orthodontist, whose holographic portrait (which switches from 'normal' to a skull) is in the waiting room, can be found giving office tours as much as working on patients' braces. That's because the office is decorated all the way through in Halloween themes: bats are suspended from one hallway ceiling--the walls decorated in ghosts. Another hallway has spiders suspended from 'webs'. All through the office complex there are 'spooky' pictures: Grant Woods' American Gothic, with ghoulish faces. The Mona Lisa in toxic green. Talking, laughing or singing skeletons, witches, and other 'creatures.
Dr. Catania says this all started seven years ago, when he began a candy buy back to stop young patients from breaking braces with trick-or-treats. He offered a dollar a pound, and told his office staff of 10 to decorate up. They've been adding to the decorations, and to the buy-back program, every year. In addition to paying patients for their candy, he now matches every dollar paid, with another to the United Way. The candy is sent to food pantries, and to the Rescue Mission, which makes small packets as part of its Thanksgiving meals. And, more office funds are designated to supplement the food drive that's now also part of it all--the food also goes to area pantries.
Dental Assistant Carlene Sickmon says the program has snowballed, with friends of patients now coming in for tours and wanting to contribute, so they've opened it up to the whole community. Kimberly Lum, also a dental assistant, says some younger children are slightly scared, but that they quickly get into the spirit of it all.
The candy collection this year begins the Monday after Halloween, November 3rd, and runs til the 13th at Catania's dental office in the Lyndon Office Park.
