education

What is The Smile Train?

The Smile Train is a charitable organization, founded in 1999, that empowers local doctors and hospitals to treat the children in their communities who are suffering with cleft lip and palate. This is done through comprehensive and free resources such as training for the medical communities and free medical equipment to improve safety and quality of care. In the past few years The Smile Train has trained more than 10,000 cleft medical professionals. All of their programs involve cost-sharing so that The Smile Train only pays a portion of the true cost of the surgery. Local partners leverage The Smile Train support to attract other support.

The ultimate goal is one of self-sufficiency and self-dependency; over time partners receive less support and can perform these surgeries independently while raising local awareness of the problem of cleft lip and palate amongst the public and government leaders. An empowered doctor in a developing country can provide cleft surgery that is:

• Safe
• High-quality
• Inexpensive
• The cost-per-surgery is as little as $250
• Same surgery could cost $10,000 in the U.S.
• Same surgery by a mission group costs $750+ and when the mission leaves, children are left behind
• Quick and effective
• Surgery takes as little as 45 minutes
• One surgery makes a tremendous and permanent impact
• Surgery can be performed 365 days a year by local doctors trained and supported by The Smile Train to address cleft lips and cleft palates as soon as possible

Is this really a problem?

Yes! There are 2.5 milllion children in the world who still need this surgery. This is not an issue in developing countries as it is routinely treated shortly after birth. However, this is the #1 congenital birth defect in many developing countries. Due to its genetic nature some families have multiple children with this problem.

Every year there are over 200,000 cleft births. A staggering 90% of clefts in developing countries are never repaired, not due to medicine but due to poverty. Struggling governments don't consider clefts a life or death issue.

Patients and their families are usually much too poor to pay for surgery; the doctors and hospitals are too poor to offer surgery for free. Medical missions from the U.S./Europe are excellent, but they do have limitations. Most missions turn away 2-3 children for every child they help.

The Smile Train provides a new approach, a new strategy, a new charity.
"Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime."

What is the success rate of The Smile Train?

In its first 5 years, The Smile Train grew from 2,000 surgeries to 109,000 and went from serving 1 country to serving 55. Their high standards raise surgery safety and the overall quality of care in cleft countries world wide.

They have proven successful with 263 partners in 55 countries, each striving to be self-sufficient. By June 1999 they had performed 852 surgeries. As of July 2005 there had been 133,702 surgeries. As of January 2008, over 280,000 smiles have been made.

In 2008 they expect 30% more children than in 2007. The seriously need our help so that no child is left behind.

Where does my donation go?

One of the huge reasons I chose to support The Smile Train is that 100% of your donation goes to program expenses!

All non-program expenses such as administration, fundraising materials like newsletters, overhead, and other communications are paid for by the founding sponsors. No money is wasted.

In following their model, I will be paying for any overhead costs for the Turning Miles into Smiles campaign including things such as my training gear, race expenses, postage and paper, web site fees, etc. Due to their minimal staff and low expenses anything reusable that I develop will be given back to The Smile Train for their (and your!) future fundraisers.