Smile Train for Christmas

[Bizarro]

I'm not really sure how to start this without sounding like some sad sack Pollyanna or something, but here goes...

You know how whenever Crappity needs to pay some bills, we usually manage to raise a nice chunk of change in a short period of time?

I was thinking for Christmas we might put that to good use.

Have you ever heard of The Smile Train?

http://www.smiletrain.org/

It's a charity that raises money to perform surgeries to correct cleft palates for kids. It's a pretty horrible, life-altering deformity for a kid to have, making it hard to eat or speak, and in many countries, it leads to ostracizing and even abuse. But it's actually not a complicated thing to fix. Smile Train is a charity with only 24 employees, but they've done 190,000 cleft palate repair surgeries. Their operational costs are paid by the board members, allowing 100% of donations to go towards surgeries. And rather than flying US doctors overseas to do them in batches, they train local doctors to do the surgery, allowing them to correct a kid's cleft palate at an average cost of $250.

Here is a before and after:



And here's an article about them from the Freakonomics blog on NYT:
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/smile-train/


So that's what I'm proposing: for Christmas this year, let's raise $250 and send it to Smile Train. It's only 15 or 20 bucks each.

It will only cover one surgery, but it will change that kid's life forever.

Seems like a mighty fine thing to do.

What do y'all say?

[Just Some Girl]

I'm in. Chilluns who are sick or injured in some way really get to me, as you may have noticed by my suckiness. Will you issue me a tax receipt?

[Bizarro]

I was thinking we'd just donate via their online system, then report back on the honor system, checking our progress here until we make our goal.

That sound okay?

[Tripp]

I'm in.

[Just Some Girl]

I was only kidding about the receipt. I've made enough charitable donations this year. I don't need your steenking American receipt.

Also, will you remind us when it's, you know, closer to xmas? Me forgets stuff.

[Jesse]

Count me in.

[Bizarro]

I've always wanted to donate to them, but $250--reasonable as it is for such an amazing thing--is too far above my means.

Between 6 or 12 of us, it should be no trouble at all.

[Doctor Rock]

I'm in. 

[bebopbalogna]

flynn.

[Doctor Rock]

Jeff, I was curious about their "100% of your donation goes toward programs -- 0% goes toward overhead" claim, so I snooped around for articles on Smile Train. 

They seem legit, and I agree we should contribute.  I think, however, that the other board members should learn more about them. 

http://www.charitywatch.org/articles/smiletrain.html

http://www.bbb.org/charity-reviews/national/toc/smile-train-in-new-york-ny-644

http://harvardmagazine.com/2009/09/smile-trains-brian-mullaney

[Bizarro]

Thanks for the links, Dan. I went to some of the same sites.

That 100% number can seem a bold promise, so it probably does bear a bit of explaining. Obviously, that 100% number doesn't mean there simply is no overhead. But the upkeep costs seem to be donated by rich folks on the organization's board. Our money that we send, would just go the the kids. One can always argue they could improve their efficiency and donate some of those millions from heiresses and corporations to kids as well, but their basic claim that any money *we* give them pays for surgeries does seem to stand up to scrutiny.

Plus, even beyond the issue of percentage of total dollars raised sent to help kids, there is the simple fact of their methodology producing more results for less money. For years, cleft palate charities helped kids by getting US doctors to donate their time, then flying them overseas, putting them up, and accumulating the materials and facilities they would need. As described above, Smile Train simply trains local doctors to do the surgery, then donates the materials. They get more bang for the buck.

[Sabamah]

definitely in.