Smile Week fundraising gets off to happy start

We’ve all seen TV shows and advertisements depicting the sad reality of children with a cleft lip or a cleft palate, asking viewers for donations to pay for surgery to repair those birth defects.

And, we've all felt good when we see the 'after' photos following those surgeries.

Operation Smile is a nonprofit organization that provides those life-changing surgeries to children in developing countries with cleft lips or palates.

With that in mind, St. Mary’s College is now in its 15th consecutive annual campaign to raise funds for Operation Smile.

This year’s campaign officially kicked off Wednesday and runs to Oct. 22, the week of Oct. 18 to be marked by fundraising and various activities for SMC’s Smile Week.

Fundraising got off to an enthusiastic start, with 290 Smile SMC hoodies - adorned with logos designed by Grade 12 French Immersion student Sammi Dechamplain - quickly selling out, the school taking orders for at least 50 more by noon Friday.  

SMC’s Operation Smile fundraising and Smile Week activities have been organized by Dechamplain and 10 of her fellow Grade 12 French Immersion classmates, with guidance from French Immersion teacher Rita Trecroce.

The students want to raise enough money for at least 11 cleft lip or palate surgeries for children in developing countries (one operation representing each of the 11 students involved in running Smile Week). 

The required surgery costs $240 per child.

11 surgeries would cost $2,640.

After selling 290 hoodies, this year’s campaign is well on its way.

“The profit margin just yesterday was $700 and the actual Smile Week events haven't even started yet,” Trecroce said, recalling SMC students raised enough money, in a previous year, for 27 cleft lip and cleft palate operations. 

Did the team expect such an amount of orders for hoodies this year?

“No, not really,” Dechamplain chuckled, surprised but delighted.

“The students, honestly, every year they raise the bar. They really do. They never, ever disappoint. They’re so passionate about it. They go all out. This group has totally gone out on Instagram. They’ve advertised it so well, and they’re very creative. They came up with some very creative events,” Trecroce said.

Those Smile Week events include dodgeball in the gym for Grades 9 through 12 Monday through Thursday of next week, ‘Smiley Fries’ available next Friday, 70s Groovy Trivia, That 70s Dress Down Day and Groovy 70s Name That Tune (a small fundraising fee in effect for some of those events).

“We’re going retro for some events because it’s the school’s 15th anniversary (of Smile Week), so we wanted to have some kind of nostalgic theme to celebrate that,” Dechamplain said.

“We all took our strengths and ran with it,” Dechamplain said of the group of eleven students’ efforts.

“I’m the artsy one so I designed the Smile SMC sweaters and I take care of Instagram and things like that. Another student is interested in accounting so she’s our treasurer and handles all the money that we make, and then another student works at the YMCA and is running the dodgeball tournament that we’re running for the students. We’re all doing what we’re interested in and took the project on ourselves, which is good.” 

Money collected through SMC’s Operation Smile fundraising through hoodie sales and Smile Week activities is sent to Operation Smile Canada.

SMC’s Smile Week was not cancelled by COVID during the 2020-21 school year.

“We did it during COVID as well but it was more virtual and it was a little bit more challenging because of the COVID restrictions. But we did an amazing job last year. We raised enough money for 20 smiles, 20 surgeries,” Trecroce said.

“Being in a Catholic high school, graduating students are expected to demonstrate certain Catholic graduate expectations, like being a responsible citizen, a caring family member, collaborative contributors and when we do this campaign they really develop and demonstrate those skills and they’re able to meet those expectations in doing this kind of work, in doing what Jesus taught us to do, and that’s helping other people that are in need,” Trecroce said.

“I like to call Smile Week the ‘Smile Movement’ at St. Mary’s College. We see a sea of all of these Smile hoodies and it just makes everyone feel so good. Everyone’s smiling, everyone’s happy.”

Trecroce and the group of 11 students have slightly altered the Huron-Superior Catholic District School Board’s 2021-22 school year slogan of ‘rebuild, restore, renew’ to ‘rebuilding smiles, restoring hope, renewing our faith’ for the coming week.     

Operation Smile Canada has provided feedback to SMC for its annual Operation Smile efforts.         

“They do success stories on YouTube. We were bawling our eyes out. It’s cool to watch. It’s awesome to know we’ll be helping these kids, at least 11 of them this year,” Dechamplain said.

“We have been featured in the national publication for Operation Smile Canada. We’ve been featured a couple of times and they give many words of thanks, personalized cards of thanks from the people from Operation Smile Canada,” Trecroce said.

The fundraiser isn’t just for SMC students, staff and teachers.

Donations from the Huron-Superior Catholic District School Board (H-SCDSB) parent community are welcome and can be made online through the board website’s ‘School Cash Online’ tab.