AAOF Legacy 300 Campaign Reaches Goal

More than a month ahead of an ambitious, self-imposed deadline, the Foundation's Legacy 300 Campaign met its goal in late November of raising $1.5 million to create the AAOF Craniofacial Growth Legacy Collection. The Legacy 300 Campaign name refers to the maximum number of donors required to reach the $1.5 million goal at the minimum recognition level of $5,000.

Donors include members of the American Association of Orthodontists (AAO), orthodontic industry representatives, friends of the specialty, orthodontic study clubs and orthodontic alumni groups. The donors' pledges were restricted to the AAOF Craniofacial Growth Legacy Collection, which is a component of the AAOF's overall Continued Commitment to the Specialty® fundraising effort. The Legacy 300 Campaign was launched by the AAOF board of directors in the fall of 2010 with the objective of reaching its goal by the close of 2011. All voting members of the AAOF board of directors are members of the Legacy 300.

The AAOF Craniofacial Legacy Growth Collection will preserve representative samples dating back more than 75 years of irreplaceable longitudinal craniofacial growth records of approximately 1,000 children and adolescents who did not have orthodontic treatment. Many of the older records are deteriorating due to the normal breakdown of radiographic images. The complete sets of growth records are now in collections that are the property of a number of U.S. and Canadian universities.

"With the funds in place, we will be able to safeguard the work of hundreds of investigators. Some of the records date to the 1920s, when radiographs were cutting-edge technology. These records cannot be replaced or recreated. We are grateful to each donor who contributed to the Legacy 300 Campaign. Their generosity makes possible further investigation by clinicians, craniofacial investigators, students of human growth and interested members of the public to refine our collective knowledge," says Nicholas D. Barone, DDS, president of the AAOF.

The existing collections of growth records, from which representative samples will be preserved in the AAOF Craniofacial Growth Legacy Collection, serve as the basis of most of the information in contemporary orthodontic literature on craniofacial growth in children who did not have orthodontic treatment. Each collection employed its own unique sampling and data collection strategies. The subjects studied were measured annually from as young as age 2, and continuing in many cases until their mid-20s, producing a rich longitudinal record of craniofacial development among children who did not receive orthodontic treatment. Orthodontic residents and researchers regularly tap these materials for investigational purposes.

The records to be preserved through digitizing include lateral and frontal cephalograms, hand-wrist films, dental radiographs, study casts and written records on the subjects' physical development. The digital files are being uploaded to a searchable online database. It currently houses more than 2,000 lateral cephalograms from nine collections, representing more than 200 cases.

More Ways You Can Help

If you would like information on how you can support the American Association of Orthodontists through planned giving, contact AAO Foundation at 800.424.2841 or aaof@aaortho.org.