Tampa Bay dentists trade cash, prizes for candy, and ship the sweets to troops

TAMPA

On Halloween night, after an hour and 15 minutes of trick-or-treating in her Cheval neighborhood, 10-year-old Nicole Krevsky decided to call it quits.

She had a pillowcase filled with candy and a mouth filled with braces waiting to dig in.

But her dad, Dan Krevsky, had a different plan.

Visions of previous Halloweens swirled in his head: his daughter's constant begging for candy, followed by an overconsumption of sweets; then Dad eating too much. And six months later? Dad finding old candy forgotten in her closet.

Tuesday evening, Krevsky drove Nicole and her girlfriend Angelique Mevorah, 9, to the dentist office of Dr. Yen Nguyen in Lutz, who was paying $1 a pound for the treats in a candy buy-back program aimed at warding off cavities while also helping out a charity.

Nguyen, like some dentists around the Tampa Bay area and across the nation, is taking part in Operation Gratitude, which ships care packages to troops overseas. Dentists this week have been paying for the candy either with money or prizes, then boxing it up for shipment.

Last year, more than 80 dentists across 27 states participated in the program, collecting about 24,000 pounds of candy for troops, according to Operation Gratitude.

"It's for such a good cause," said Nguyen, whose office collected more than 30 pounds of treats in three hours. "It also keeps kids from eating so much candy."

In addition, Nguyen raffled away an iPod, several Wii games and restaurant gift certificates.

But not all dentists are paying cash for candy.

Dr. Lesley Rudolph of Tampa will be giving away toothbrushes and small prizes at her dental office on Thursday.

Dentists say they are finding that it's not the promise of money or goodies that is drawing children, but rather the chance to do something good.

Dr. Rodney Holcombe of New Tampa collected more than 200 pounds of candy and hardly spent a dime.

"Most people wouldn't even take the money," said financial coordinator Angela Mawhir, whose brother-in-law is in the Air Force and has served overseas. "They just wanted to give it to the troops."

The cause was another reason Krevsky decided to have Nicole participate. Nicole, a fourth-grader at McKitrick Elementary School, refused the $4 for her stash, which she had picked through to set aside pieces of Hershey's, Reese's and Kit Kats for herself.

"I never eat it all anyway," she said, "and it's good to donate because they're fighting for us."