Operation smile is a wonderful company that helps children with cleft lips get fixed. Amazing!!! Campus book rentals donates to operation smile with each book that is rented!!! how amazing is that? a company giving to charity for college students renting textbooks- truly amazing!!! (((:

HOW YOUR SUPPORT HELPS

Every dollar counts. Every gift helps change the life of a child who is suffering from a cleft lip or cleft palate.

Your gifts transform lives

For a little as $240, you can help provide a cleft lip or cleft palate surgery. This surgery can change a child's life forever and can take as few as 45 minutes.

Contributions in excess of surgical costs are invested into our sustainability programs, which empower our partner countries to treat more children on their own.

Operation Smile has more than 5,000 credentialed medical volunteers in over 80 countries who are ready to donate their time and talent. Your gifts help send them to countries where desperate children are waiting to be healed.

Your gifts help us teach and train healthcare professionals

We have a worldwide network of teaching hospitals and university partners, including Duke University, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Penn State Hershey Medical Center and many others.

Your gifts help support our life-support training programs worldwide. Today, Operation Smile is authorized by the American Heart Association to function as a global and mobile International Training Organization.

Our Physicians' Training Program (PTP) brings doctors and nurses from around the world to the United States for advanced training in their specialized fields.

Your gifts build awareness and leadership

Our International Foundations and U.S. Chapters raise funds, recruit volunteers and raise awareness on a grassroots level.

With your support, Operation Smile continues to lead the way in providing free, safe surgeries worldwide as well as related medical care.

900 Operation Smile Student Clubs and associations in the United States and around the world build awareness, conduct grassroots fundraising and educate students about values of commitment, leadership and volunteerism.

The World Care Program brings children and young adults to the U.S. and other countries for surgeries that are too complicated to be performed during in-country surgical missions.

WHO WE ARE: INTERNATIONAL CHARITY

Operation Smile is an international children's medical charity that heals children's smiles, forever changing their lives.

As an international charity for children, we measure ourselves by the joy we see on all of the faces we help. At Operation Smile, we're more than a charity. More than an NGO. We're a mobilized force of medical professionals and caring hearts who provide safe, effective reconstructive surgery and related medical care for children born with facial deformities such as cleft lip and cleft palate.

Every three minutes a child is born with a cleft. One in 10 of those children will die before their first birthday. The children who survive are often unable to eat, speak, socialize or smile. In some places, they are shunned and rejected. And in too many cases, their parents can't afford to give them the surgeries they need to live a productive life.

Every child deserves access to safe, quality surgical care. Every child deserves a future filled with hope.

That's where we come in as the largest volunteer-based medical charity providing free cleft surgeries. Since 1982, Operation Smile — through the help of dedicated medical volunteers — has provided more than 3.5 million comprehensive patient evaluations and over 200,000 free surgeries for children and young adults born with facial deformities. Our work creates a lasting global impact. We train local doctors in developing countries and strengthen healthcare systems so more children in some of the poorest areas in the world can be treated.

As one of the most prominent charities for children in the world, we work in over 60 countries to heal children’s smiles and bring hope for a better future. Together, we are saving children’s lives.

Thanks to the generosity and spirit of volunteerism shown by our supporters, we heal thousands of children per year. With your help, how many lives can we change tomorrow? Learn more about our mission, key differentiators and history to see how we are unique from other children charities by clicking on the links below.

WHAT WE DO

Operation Smile and its more than 5,000 medical volunteers are working every day around the world to provide safe, effective and free cleft lip and cleft palate reconstructive surgery for children all over the world. We are an international medical humanitarian organization that works in over 60 countries that is dedicated to raising awareness of this life-threatening issue and providing lasting solutions.
Hundreds of thousands of children are still suffering from facial deformities. Worse, children are dying every day simply because they lack the access to safe surgical care which would change their lives forever.
We have gained extensive knowledge and insight into the challenges facing global health in the developing world. Poverty, malnutrition, cultural superstitions, and a severe lack of specialized surgeons in many resource-poor areas are all part of the problem.

Giving every child the chance to smile.

Every child deserves the ability to smile and a chance to thrive. But in many parts of the world, children with cleft lip and cleft palate are hidden away, too embarrassed to attend school and face uncertain futures because their parents cannot afford to provide the surgery they need.
Our free, life-changing surgeries take as little as 45 minutes, and can give a boy or girl with a facial deformity a lifetime of smiles. Plus, every child we heal creates a ripple effect on the child's family, community and country.
Our medical volunteers span six continents — surgeons, anesthesiologists, pediatricians, intensivists, nurses, speech therapists, nutritionists, dentists, child life specialists and so many more. They do far more than provide free surgery for these children; they provide comprehensive care to treat the whole child.
Imagine an older child whose cleft palate is fixed, but is still unable to speak — or a child who has never before seen a pediatrician or dentist before they encounter Operation Smile. Many of our patients are severely malnourished because their parents don’t know how to breastfeed a child with a cleft. Our medical teams give our patients specialized care so they can live healthy and productive lives.

In-Country Teams

In more than 35 countries, Operation Smile has established Foundation offices that work on the ground to move countries toward self-sufficiency. Our in-country teams do this by recruiting in-country volunteers, raising local funds and coordinating their own surgical missions.
We also have established more than 20 Comprehensive Care and Training & Treatment Centers globally. These are permanent facilities where, year-round, patients are provided free surgery and the related care they need.

Medical Education and Training

While people living in the developing world have the greatest burden of surgical disease, they also have the fewest medical professionals trained in specialized practice areas. Through partnerships, Operation Smile has developed in-depth, hands-on medical education programs and trained thousands of local healthcare professionals in developing countries. These training programs create a dramatic ripple effect because every patient touched by these medical professionals is benefiting from their newly-acquired expertise.
Operation Smile’s goal is to create universal access to safe surgery and holistic cleft care, and reach even more children — saving and changing their lives forever.
We hope you'll join us with your support.

OUR MISSION

Operation Smile mobilizes a world of generous hearts to heal children's smiles and transform lives across the globe.
We believe that all children deserve to live their lives with dignity. And for those suffering from cleft lip, cleft palate or other facial deformities, dignity begins with a smile.
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.
Our impact is felt not just through the children we heal, but through the daily transformation of donors, volunteers and staff as we fulfill our shared vision and see immediate, life-changing results.