Monday, December 5, 2011

Make a Smile

It's that time of year again.  Everybody and his dog has his hand out, looking for a little something extra to make ends meet:  Mortgage-Reduction-Weekend at church, Balance-the-Budget-End-of-Year-Drive at the club, Put-something-in-the-pot Sally Ann bell ringers on every corner.

And now, there's me.
I want to offer you a wonderful opportunity to DOUBLE YOUR MONEY, making a small donation go twice as far. We have until this Wednesday (only two more days) to share a smile with someone who doesn't have one.
For only $250.00 a child living with no hope can be given a new face, a smile, a chance at a full and productive life.  All doctors, nurses, and anaesthesiologist fees are waived.  Hospital fees are donated.  Smile Train has the very highest donation-to-end-result ratio of any charity, bar none!
"Clefts are a major problem in developing countries where there are millions of children who are suffering with unrepaired clefts. Most cannot eat or speak properly, aren't allowed to attend school or hold a job and face very difficult lives filled with shame and isolation, pain and heartache. Their clefts usually go untreated because they are poor – too poor to pay for a simple surgery that has been around for decades."


Smile Train STOP CLEFTS Burundi Initiative 2011 from Smile Train on Vimeo.

Our family was one that experienced having a baby born with a cleft lip and palate. I grew up being told, "Be thankful you were born normal." My early memories are of doing tongue and mouth exercises with my siblings, learning how to roll our tongues, suck and blow by pursing our lips and make long vowel sounds clearly.

Repeated surgeries, clinic visits, orthodentia, self-esteem issues were things we took for granted in our family.

Today, 60 years later, things haven't changed much for people dealing with this congenital anomally, but there has been a dramatic development in sharing the technology for surgical repair.

Smile Train
is a not-for-profit charitable organization that has to date given over 700,000 children in third world countries a new face.




Will you consider making even a very small donation today?  Whatever you give, will be doubled for the next two days. 
Don't wait.  Do it now. 
Share a smile. 
Make a smile.
You'll be so glad you did and so will I.

3 comments:

MunirGhiasuddin said...

Last year in November my daughter went to "Chuckfest" where the television stars were gathered to raise money to help kids with cleft lip. It is called operation smile. She did pay the money. I know that it was enough to help out a child go through the opertion.

Claudya Martinez said...

I am financially in the red, seriously in the red, but this is wonderful and I will tweet it out.

Veronica Lee said...

This is truly wonderful!