Smiley Faces Foundation: Promoting Awareness And Amazing Kids
We live in a society obsessed with outside beauty, so it’s no wonder that parents whose children are born with any imperfection worry endlessly about how their child will be accepted in society.
As parents, though, our job is to make sure our kids see themselves as much more than whatever obstacles are tossed their way, as tough as that may be.
Adam and Donna Bell felt that anguish first hand in 2005 when their son Ethan was born with cleft lip and palate. Ethan now has an adorable smile and hardly a scar at all thanks to the amazingly talented doctors at the NYU Institute of Reconstructive Plastic Surgery.
Wanting to do more to raise awareness about the nearly 1 in 600 infants born with cleft (opening) lip or palate each year, the Bell’s founded Smiley Faces Foundation, a nonprofit who strives to not only assist the Institute of Reconstructive Plastic Surgery at NYU Langone Medical Center, but also help provide treatment for all children who need cleft lip and palate repair in the United States. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Dr. Gwenn Is In*