Fundraiser for Smile Train

Shelby and I are going to the Post Offices my sister works at for her big annual fundraising event tomorrow morning. I am speaking on behalf of Smile Train. Here is my big speech. What do you think? Give me the pointers and tips now so I can be prepared in the morning!!

Hi I am Donna Straight, and this is my daughter Shelby. Shelby was born with one of the most common birth defects in the world- A cleft lip and palate. Here is Shelby’s baby picture. (Who’s this Shelby?- She is quick to say-THAT's ME!)

I am here to represent a terrific organization that helps children across the world that are cleft affected. SMILE TRAIN. The Smile Train is changing the world-One Smile at a Time!

For as little as $250 and a 45 minute surgery, a child’s life can be dramatically changed. Children who are unable to have their lips fixed, are not allowed to attend school and grow up uneducated and unemployed.

One of the great things that Smile Train does is that they use volunteer doctors to go to these poor developing countries to TRAIN other doctors on how to perform the cleft repairing surgeries. So as the saying goes: Instead of giving a man a fish to feed him for one day, you should teach him to fish to feed him for a lifetime. Well that is what the Smile Train is doing.

They are training the doctors to perform this simple surgery so they can continue to help other children on an ongoing basis. This is how they can perform this life altering surgery for so little, by using in country physicians.

Clefts are really a misunderstood birth defect that any of us could have easily been affected by. Everyone had the “potential” to have a cleft lip or palate. Stick your tongue to the roof of your mouth and you feel a line going down the center. This is where your mouth grew together when your formed in the womb. When the 2 sides don’t meet together, that forms a missing gap in the lip and palate. So what didn’t connect on the inside, sometimes has to be repaired on the outside. Hence Cleft Surgery.

So for as little as $5 per week, you can change a child’s life. I can’t imagine Shelby having to suffer with an unrepaired lip. Trust me- I know, she wouldn’t be the same outgoing, spirited, and confident child that she is today. I am very thankful that Smile Train is available to hurting children.

Thank you for letting us come out today, to share our story about Shelby’s beginning. I hope that you will consider giving today to this wonderful organization.


Just remember:

"A hundred years from now
it will not matter what your bank account was,
the sort of house you lived in,
or the kind of car you drove.
But the world may be different because YOU made a difference in the life of a child."


Thank you.