Everyone Deserves to Smile During the Holidays: Here's Your Chance to Help a Child Smile with Operation Smile!

I know that with the holidays steadily creeping up on us people are starting to look for ways they can reach out to help those in need in their community by donating or volunteering their time to Charities of their choice. As someone who has donated to a few charities when my limited income permits it I know that it can be hard to find a charity that you can trust and feel good about donating to. There are just so many worthwhile charities that could use the help and your kindness. One charity that I know I can feel good about donating to this holiday season is Operation Smile.

Operation Smile is an international children's medical charity that performs safe, effective cleft lip and cleft palate surgery, and delivers postoperative and ongoing medical therapies to children in low and middle income countries. Because they believe that every child deserves a access safe, quality medical care, and a future filled with hope Operation Smile has provided 220,000 free surgical procedures for children and young adults with help from dedicated medical volunteers since  1982. Another fact about Operation Smile that I just love is that those medical volunteers I mentioned are trained by the folks over at Operation Smile for the express purpose of sending them into developing countries to help strengthen heathcare systems so those children within them can be treated. Together they work in 60 different countries to give children with cleft lips/cleft palates the hope to live fuller, happy lives.

Having a cleft palate or cleft lip might not seem to be such a big deal to some but did you know that children with cleft conditions who actually survive past infancy can go on to have challenges eating, speaking, hearing and breathing correctly? In some places they are even rejected by their communities and shunned for a condition that they have absolutely no control over and that in many cases their parents just can't afford to have medically remedied.

Since 1987 Operation Smile has been receiving honorable awards  almost every year for their outstanding volunteer work around the world in providing children and young adults with the care they need to live happy, healthy lives after Cleft lip/Cleft palate surgery. If that doesn't tell you something about the heart of this charity then I don't know what will!

So, if you're looking for a worthwhile, honest charity to donate to this holiday season then look no further than Operation Smile. Help a child or young adult with a cleft condition shine by giving them a small donation. Any amount will help and will never go unappreciated!

Campusbookrentals is an excellent example of giving back to charities and they dont just wait until Christmas but they do it all year long by donating to Operation Smile with every book rental that comes through on their end. It doesn't get more supportive and giving than that folks!