Person of the Week: Dentist Chris Kammer Sends Leftover Halloween Candy to Troops

Oct. 29, 2010— -- Halloween is the sweetest holiday for kids, but for dentists, it's a horror.

"Normally, you wouldn't put your child in front of a shopping bag full of candy and say, 'Go ahead, have it, enjoy it,'" dentist Chris Kammer said. "When you have childhood [tooth] decay on the rise and obesity is almost epidemic proportions, Halloween is a brand new nightmare."

Kammer, a dentist from Wisconsin, came up with a creative and no-cavity solution. Four years ago, he started offering to buy back his littlest patients' leftover loot for $1 a pound.

"We are, by no means, the Halloween Grinch. We understand Halloween is Americana, kids are going to go out and they're going to trick-or-treat," Kammer said. "But, we'll buy back the candy that sits around all week, that they just don't really want but eat it because it's there."

Kammer admitted that even his own kids were suspicious about the idea that young trick-or-treaters would actually turn in their candy.

"The kids looked at me and said, 'Dad, that's a terrible idea,'" Kammer said.

The children were wrong.

Kammer's simple idea has grown into a national movement -- the Halloween Candy Buy Back program. Thousands of dentists participate every year from almost every state. The amount of candy they've been able to collect is simply astonishing: 122,000 pounds last year alone.

Kammer said that he was inspired by his own father, Jack Kammer, who was a dentist, too.

Jack Kammer also was a local philanthropist well known for starting a popular Christmas lights festival.

"Giving to the community and giving to the profession are things I just naturally got from my father," Kammer said. "Noticing the selfless way that my father gave back to the community and, in many ways, in dentistry, certainly was inspirational to me to do the same thing."

So, like father like son, Kammer decided to give back in a big way.

To Learn More About the Halloween Candy Buy Back Program, Click Here