The Smile Rescue Fund brings children from other countries for life saving craniofacial surgeries. The environments that the recipients come here from are at least partially if not directly responsible for the defect or injury that we are correcting.  When a child has surgery and is ready to go back home, as a foundation, we face the reality that we are sending them back to that same tough environment.

I have mixed emotions as I tell you that Saline will be returning home to Kenya on May 2, 2021.

One of the more difficult issues facing our friends in Kenya is the lack of nourishment for children in school- that’s where the Smile Rescue LEAP program comes in. Our ‘Lunch for Educational Achievement Program’, is an initiative to offer hot school lunches to 100 children in Africa. Through this program orphans and other vulnerable learners are given regular access to hot lunch during school, making the pursuit of an education realistic and investing in their futures.

It is with great pleasure that I am able to announce that we were able to raise enough money to bring back Saline for additional surgery.  It has been five years since she was here and was only 12 years old at the time. She is now a 17-year-old young lady and is so happy to be back.

I know that many of you are interested in following Dunia’s journey, so I thought you might like an update on how he’s doing at the beginning of 2017.

Henry Schein, Inc., the world’s largest provider of health care products and services to office-based dental, animal health and medical practitioners, announced today that it has awarded the inaugural Henry Schein Cares Medal for medical health—an award that will be given annually to one organization that demonstrates excellence in expanding access to medical care for the underserved—to Hands Up for Haiti (HUFH). Stanley M. Bergman, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Henry Schein, Inc., presented the Mount Kisco, New York-based humanitarian organization with the medal at the Company’s national medical sales meeting in Dallas last week.