A group of students at Arizona State University are receiving major help from a local Tucson startup company to help build a mobile dental clinic.
The college students took on a humanitarian project to build and design a mobile clinic that will one day make its way to Central America.
Four years ago, Sara Mantlik and a group of other engineering students started the program called "Engineering Projects in Community Service."
The group decided the mobile dental clinic would go to a host hospital in Nicaragua.
"There's no space for the dentist to perform these procedures because dentistry is a luxury in developing countries," said Mantlik.
"Dentists bring all of their own equipment and set up in the hallways or in the storage closets in the host hospitals they are working at."
The dentists were provided by IMAHELPS, a nonprofit that sends doctors on medical missions around the world.
These doctors work 14-hours days and serve more than 1,000 patients.
The new mobile clinic will allow for services to be provided to two patients at once.
Catalina Laboratory Projects, a Tucson startup, then became involved with the project.
The company only planned to give the students cabinets, but once they visited the trailer, they donated more.
"The inside of the trailer needed to be remodeled to be a functioning dental laboratory," said Chris Andrews with CATLABPRO.
The company then fully renovated the trailer.
However, the students still need medical supplies to have the clinic up and running.
The mobile clinic will provide services to people in the Phoenix and California area and will then head to Nicaragua in 2018.
If you would like to donate to Engineering Projects in Community Service, click here.
