Operation Smile 5.87

In 1982, Dr. Bill Magee, a plastic surgeon, and his wife, Kathy, a nurse and clinical social worker, traveled to the Philippines with a group of medical volunteers to repair children's cleft lip and cleft palates. What they found was overwhelming. "People pushed their babies at us," recalls Kathy. "They tugged at our sleeves with tears in their eyes and begged us to help their children." In Naga City, approximately 300 families arrived hoping their children would receive surgery, but the team could only treat 40 children. As they prepared to leave, a mother whose daughter the medical team couldn't treat due to a lack of supplies brought them a basket of ripe bananas and insisted they accept these bananas as a gift for trying to heal her child. The Magees made a promise to return and help her child as well as the many others that they had to leave behind. At that moment, Operation Smile was born.