Smile Maker was inspired by the successful, ongoing Miles of Smiles mobile dental program in Dare County, NC. Retired dentist, Dr. Wally Smith, and his wife, Pam, had been active participants in the NC program before moving to Sarasota, FL in 1999. When Clarice Yentsch, then President of TWF, met Wally and Pam in 2018, and learned about their experiences operating a mobile dental clinic in NC, she suggested that TWF could help replicate the mobile dental program for underserved children in the Florida Keys. There was a clear need in the Keys, where the ratio of dentists per person was less than half the national average, and only a few dentists accept Medicaid patients.