Long Island businesses help woman with kin deployed

A Melville advertising agency says it has marshalled the help of a dental clinic and other businesses to provide free, urgently-needed dental care for a South Carolina woman whose husband and three sons are deployed to Afghanistan in Army and National Guard contingents.

Benefiting from the help will be Bonnie Hoagland, of Chester, S.C., who will be treated for free by an Islandia dental clinic. Hoagland can't afford to be on her husband's military dental plan because of high deductible costs, the news release said.

Hoagland was profiled on ABC World News and other media outlets as she prepared to see her sons and husband ship overseas.

Marketing businessman Norman Oberlander of Zip Productions Inc. is "driven by a desire to not only just show thanks and support for our troops but to actually do something that would make a difference," he said in a news release.

Oberlander has recruited Exceldent Dental LLC of Islandia to do the actual dental work, valued at $4,000.

She has been in pain for years with a fractured tooth, and will need a root canal, post, crown and other work. Her daughter Rachel, 16, will also get free dental care from the company.

Bonnie Hoagland will arrive on Long Island on Sunday. Paying her travel, hotel and food expenses are Muro Associates LLC, of Hauppauge; Park Place Realty Group LLC, of Melville; and Freedom Alliance, of Dulles, Va. Bical Chevrolet, of Valley Stream, will let Hoagland use a rental car during her stay. And the Long Island Marriott in Melville has agreed to foot the bill for her at the hotel.

Now, Oberlander says he won't stop at a single good deed.

He wants to launch a new not-for-profit called GreatSmileAmericanHero.com as a clearinghouse for dentists nationwide who want to volunteer to treat "other needy families of those serving in the armed forces."

In the photo above provided by Hoagland are her husband and four sons in the military. Four of the soldiers are deployed now. Hoagland's  fourth and eldest son, National Guard Spc. Chad Moss, 24, second from left, will remain in the States due to injuries from previous tours of duty in Afghanistan.

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