Operation Smile was founded in 1982 by Dr. Bill Magee, a plastic surgeon, and his wife Kathy Magee, a nurse and clinical social worker. They traveled to the Philippines with a group of volunteers to repair children’s cleft lips and palates.
The need was far greater than their capacity to perform surgery. Out of 300 families that arrived hoping their children would receive life-changing surgery, the team could only treat 40 children. “People pushed their babies at us,” Kathy recalls.
The Magee’s couldn’t bear to leave children behind and promised to return. They began raising donations of surgical equipment and supplies from manufacturers, threw themselves into grassroots fundraising, and assembled a volunteer team of 18 doctors, nurses and technicians for their own medical mission to the Philippines. They helped about 100 more patients, but hundreds remained.
That experience sparked the beginning of a global movement that includes 6,000+ medical volunteers operating in over 30 countries – providing surgery, nutrition, psychosocial care, speech therapy, and oral health support. We continue to build medical capacity to care for more children, in more places, closer to where they live by investing in the education and training of local medical professionals and strengthening healthcare systems in low- and middle-income countries.