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Community Service
Operation Smile

When Operation Smile was founded by Dr. William P. Magee, a plastic surgeon, and his wife, Kathleen, a nurse and clinical social worker. In 1982, the Magee's traveled to the Philippines with a group of medical volunteers to repair children's cleft lips and cleft palates. They discovered hundreds of children ravaged by deformities, and although they helped many children, the volunteers were forced to turn away the majority of those who sought help. The Magee's saw the need and Operation Smile was born.

In May last year, an Operation Smile team of 44 international volunteer medical professionals gathered in Lima and provided free reconstructive surgery to 125 children and young adults who suffered from cleft lips, cleft palates and other facial deformities.

Volunteers from the United States, Panama and Canada worked with the Peruvian medical team at Hospital Daniel A. Carrion in Callao. The team evaluated 439 patients and performed 150 surgical procedures on 125 patients.

This mission marked Operation Smile's sixth international surgical mission to Peru. Since Operation Smile's first mission to Peru in 1999, 760 children and young adults in Lima have been surgically treated and 2,247 have received free medical evaluations.

Colegio Franklin D. Roosevelt's 6th grade students began its relationship with Operation Smile by presenting a check for $750 prior to the first International Mission in Peru. The following year, students volunteered for the International Mission held at the Hospital Maria Auxiliadora in San Juan de Miraflores.

In 2002, two Roosevelt students attended Operation Smile's Annual International Student Conference and returned to Lima to set up Peru's first Operation Smile Student Association. Since then, Operation Smile Club members volunteer at all missions in Peru, both local and international, and are regular volunteers at the Operation Smile House in Miraflores.

Over the last two years, the Operation Smile club has grown to be the largest club at Roosevelt with 48 participating members. Students raise funds and awareness for Operation Smile's work in Peru by selling baked goods at school functions, asking for donations during school hosted conferences, sponsoring a “Night of Smiles” entertainment evening and most recently, hosting a Poetry Café. Between the 6th Grade students and PTA donations, Colegio Roosevelt donated approximately $3,500 to Operation Smile last year.

The dedicated student volunteers from Roosevelt are an integral part of the Operation Smile Peru team and through their fundraising and awareness activities, assistance at Operation Smile House, and participation in missions, they continue to help change lives “one smile at a time.”

Thomas Wesson, President of the Operation Smile club at Roosevelt, expresses his feelings about Operation Smile by saying this: “Operation Smile, to me, is magical. Students, everyday freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors, can raise a few hundred dollars to pay for a child's surgery that will change his or her life. A free surgery for a child living in a pueblo joven is like the wave of a magic wand. I also think it changes the lives of those who volunteer. Most at Roosevelt come from wealthy families and have never experienced how difficult day-to-day living can be for the majority of the country. For them, the experience of working in a bustling hospital hallway, hearing screams and noise, is a shock at first. Then, they step up. They flow with it, do what they can and at the end of the shift they feel a little better about themselves and their place in the world than they did before.”

Operation Smile's next International Mission in Peru will be May 16th-21st at the Hospital Carrion in Callao. Roosevelt students will be volunteering from 6am until 9pm daily, and anticipate assisting with more than 125 operations.

How can you Help? There are a variety of ways you can make your life-changing donation to Operation Smile.

Operation Smile-Peru has an office located on Calle Dos de Mayo in Miraflores and if you would like to make a cash or check donation, please contact Ximena Palma, the Director, at 445-9595, or you may make a secure online donation by visiting the Operation Smile website at: www.operationsmile.org