Operation Smile provides surgery to children with cleft lips and cleft palates, who wouldn’t normally have access to good medial care, throughout the world. Operation Smile was founded in 1982 by Dr. William P. Magee, Jr. (a plastic surgeon) and his wife, Kathleen (a nurse & social worker). When they traveled to the Philippines with a group of medical volunteers to fix cleft lips and cleft palates they found themselves overwhelmed with the amount of children who needed help. Over 300 families showed up in hope of their children getting a surgery, unfortunately they were only able to help 40 children on that trip. William and Kathleen vowed to return and that is how Operation Smile was born!
Operation Smile goes on hundreds of medical missions each year. Sometimes, they have to import medical equipment, other times they bring medical experts. But in every location, they work with local healthcare providers to deliver patient care in their own culture and language. Anesthesiologists, surgeons, nurses, dentists, speech pathologists and pediatricians, just to name a few, volunteered 398,832 hours last year. The estimated value of their contribution is $31,935,728!
Lays is donating up to 1 million dollars to Operation Smile. They are donating a percentage of each Smile Bag sold, making it easy for us to help! Head to the Smile With Lay’s website to see how you can get your smile on a Lay’s bag or to tryout some smile filters for your phone.