Gainesville — The pink ties may be visible only to a dentist but area orthodontic patients are wearing pink on their braces to support Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

For those who choose the pink ties — small elastic bands around their dental appliances — the act is more than a gesture of support for those facing a serious illness.

Dr. Les Starnes of Starnes Orthodontics donates $20 to the Komen Foundation for every patient who wears the pink ties.

“We just want people to know that Starnes Orthodontics is 100 percent supportive of the fight to help end breast cancer,” Starnes said.

Starnes office manager Holley Beam said she and her coworkers got the idea to launch a breast cancer project after the group began wearing pink during Breast Cancer Awareness month last October.

“We all wore some pink somewhere during the day when we saw patients,” Beam said “Then we noticed a lot of the boys would come in and get pink ties. It just surprised me, and I didn’t know these young boys cared so much. Even a couple of the high school age boys did it and that kind of got me to thinking there are people that do all kinds of fundraisers for breast cancer awareness. We should do something too.”

Beam said her efforts to help fight the disease which takes nearly 40,000 lives each year stems from a personal loss.

“It touches me because one of my mom’s very best friends passed away from breast cancer,” Beam said.

About half Starnes’ patients are participating in the Komen project.

“I’m pretty impressed with the response we’ve gotten,” Beam said, adding Starnes Orthodontics will also donate 50 cents to the Komen Foundation for every “like” the dental center gets on Facebook.

The pink tie project isn’t Starnes’ first altruistic act in Gainesville.

Earlier this year, the doctor and his staff took impressions and made protective mouth guards for members of the Gainesville High School football teams and the Callisburg High School football teams.

“With Gainesville, we actually went to the field house for three or four days to take the impressions,” Beam said. “We did the varsity one day, the JV the next day and the freshman the next day.”

Staff members then brought the impressions back to their office inside Dr. Kelly Wimmer’s dental clinic on East Highway 82 in Gainesville.

“We made the mouth guards at our office and then gave the impressions to the kids,” Beam said. “Some of the kids thought that was pretty cool.”

About 70 GISD football players and approximately 28 Callisburg players received free mouth guards.

Beam pointed out professionally crafted mouth guards can range from $150 to more than $500.

She also said she contacted other area schools to try to drum up more participants for the mouth guard initiative.

She said she hopes to facilitate a similar project for area basketball players.

“Dr. Starnes cares about these kids’ teeth,” Beam said. “He wanted everyone to keep their teeth safe. You wouldn’t believe the number of dental injuries because of poor quality mouth guards.”