The Worth of a Smile

I was looking through my scrapbooks and photos the other night, enjoying all the smiles grinning back at me on the pages. I saw silly smiles, awkward smiles, shy smiles, jolly smiles, toothy smiles, and the best one of all, the sincere, tender smile (these are the ones that make me sigh…) and a thought occurred to me: A smile is such a small thing and yet it is everything. If no one smiled in the world, it would be quite the depressing place! Gladly, life is full of smiles—everywhere you go you see millions of them if you look for them; that's how I choose to live my life: look for the smiles, the happiness!

And that's what Close To My Heart is all about: preserving your smiles, your happy times, the important people in your life, for generations to come. So, I pose a question: If smiles make such a difference in life and are so worthy of preserving, just what is the worth of a smile? Thanks to a couple of people I met in the past few years who have become great friends of mine, Dr. William and Kathy Magee, I now believe smiles are worth so much more than ever. Let me share with you my "smile" journey.

Four years ago I knew that my company needed to give back to the community, but how? Where do you start—there are so many important causes! Then a friend of mine told me of a new charity called Operation Kids®, an umbrella organization for many children's charities. This was a great place to start. From there I learned of an amazing charity called Operation Smile, and during the last few years I've come to know that I will spend the rest of my life working on behalf of this worthy charity—a charity that gives children their smiles back!! (In case you aren't familiar with them, Operation Smile sends volunteer medical teams around the world to fix facial deformities in children whose parents cannot afford the surgery or don't have access to the expertise. I encourage you to visit their website at operationsmile.org to see all the wonderful things they do.)

I have become close friends with the Magees. They have my heart and my commitment to help as many children as possible receive their smiles. My company now donates a portion of the proceeds from stamp sales, and we encourage customers to round up their order totals and donate the difference, to help this worthy cause. Bill and Kathy have told me incredible stories about children born with cleft palates, cleft lips, and other problems, and how their surgeries have made such a difference in their young lives and their families' lives, too. Watching the efforts of these wonderful people, and seeing first-hand the joy that comes with this healing has taught me what the worth of a smile is.

If you'd like to read more about my Operation Smile experiences that I shared with my Consultants at our Convention last summer, click here.