Jessica Pellegrino – General Assignment Reporter
Every three minutes, a child is born into the world with a cleft lip or palate. A cleft palate is a congenital defect that occurs in an embryo’s development stage. A main cause for cleft lips and palates across the world is malnutrition and maternal illness, which is why it is such a large problem in developing countries.
The national organization, Operation Smile, sets out to combat this issue through fundraising endeavors. According to the Operation Smile website, their Mission is simple. The website said, “Driven by our universal compassion for children, we work worldwide to repair childhood facial deformities by delivering safe, effective surgery and related medical care directly to patients. The global partnerships we create, the knowledge we share and the infrastructure we build leave a legacy that lives well beyond our medical missions, making a lasting difference in our world.”
In other words, Operation Smile takes part in different fundraising projects in order to raise money that can be applied to medical treatments for children with cleft lips, cleft palates or other facial deformities.
There is a chapter of the Operation Smile Organization on Southern’s campus. A fairly new club, Operation Smile has attracted many new members because of their straight forward mission and task force.
Emily Turner is the Intercollegiate Relations member for Southern’s Operation Smile. Turner said, “We raise money for children around the world with cleft palates so that they can receive corrective surgery.”
Clefts in children are extremely detrimental because they restrict eating abilities and breathing abilities.
Operation Smile is a national organization, so schools all around the country have Operation Smile organization on their campuses. What does this mean for students? Operation Smile has headquarters all around the world from Washington D.C to the Democratic Republic of Congo. Operation Smile offers jobs and leadership positions to past members. With thousands of members, the networking potential of Operation Smile is unlimited.
Southern’s chapter of Operation Smile does many fundraisers for the organization.
“We do a large amount of fundraisers,” said Turner. “We’re always doing bake sales. Last year, we did the Miles for Smiles event which was very successful.”
Operation Smile ran a Miles for Smiles event last spring. The 5k course stretched around Southern’s campus and participants to run, sprint or walk the course. Operation Smile saw support from runners as well as other organizations on campus. The goal of the event was to raise enough money to fund ten surgeries. The event provided guest speakers to tell their inspiring stories of life with cleft lips.
Emily Turner believes that the best part of being involved in Operation Smile is the fulfilling feeling it gives you. “It’s one of the most rewarding feelings I’ve ever experienced.” said Turner. “It’s also great because the surgeries are so inexpensive. That’s important because we can help so many people so easily. The surgery pricing doesn’t seem out of our reach, which is really a motivating factor. So, sometimes one fundraiser can benefit six children. It’s really amazing what we can do.”
Operation Smile is a great organization on campus whose efforts provide greatly needed surgeries to children all around the world. Operation Smile meets in Adanti Student Center room 305 and they have meetings every other Wednesday. For more information and to learn how to get involved in Operation Smile, contact Emily Turner, at turnere4@owls.southernct.edu.
Photo Credit: Derek Torrellas
