Operation Smile Train

Have you heard of this organization? If you were my friend on facebook you would have...

Anyways, my friend Kirsten told me about Smile Train a while ago. She told me that they made a documentary that I had to see. Smile Pinki won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short in 2008. The documentary follows the story of several children in India (including Pinki) who have cleft palates and how it affects their lives. These children can't even go to school, because they are shunned and misunderstood. They meet social workers from Smile Train, then travel to the city to have a simple operation that fixes their cleft palates. It is really an amazing story and you can get it free from their website.

Smile Train and Operation Smile are both organizations that fix children's cleft palates around the world. Recently they have come together to form Operation Smile Train. You should visit the websites to learn more. I had no idea that cleft palates are such a huge problem for children around the world and that they can be fixed with a simple hour long surgery.

There are many ways to help, even if you're not a surgeon. One way is through Campus Textbook Rentals. They are donating a portion of every rental to Operation Smile with a goal of 1,000 surgeries. When they contacted me and told me that they were donating 1,000 surgeries (and offered me candy) I jumped at the chance to help. I hope you can help too.