One Smile at a Time: How an Accidental Do-Gooder Helped Change the Lives of Millions of Children and Their Communities

" Brian Mullaney has done more to change the lives of poor children than just about any other person on the planet. If you have a heart, "One Smile at a Time" will touch it. I don' t think you can read this book without being forever changed." -- Steve Levitt, coauthor, "Freakonomics" and "Superfreakonomics" " Brian Mullaney' s story of Smile Train' s runaway success is not only inspiring on a human scale, it' s also a fascinating account of how a small group of people, armed with a willingness to buck the status quo, to not take no for an answer, and to make up new rules when the old ones don' t work, can perform radical problem-solving that no one might have thought possible. I hope presidents and CEOs all over the world read this book and learn how to fix things." -- Stephn. J. Dubner, coauthor, "Freakonomics "and "Superfreakonomics" " I get a great deal of satisfaction out of solving everyday problems. Being associated with Smile Train, which solves serious problems on a global scale, is even more satisfying. Brian Mullaney' s book, "One Smile at a Time," is inspiring and truly heartwarming." -- Alex Trebek, Host, "Jeopardy" " Smile Train saves lives and offers hope. What a wonderful mission that is." -- President George H.W. Bush " ""One Smile at a Time" is the inspiring story of Brian Mullaney, an advertising executive who knew nothing about charities-- until he decided to start his own. In 1996, while volunteering on an overseas medical mission, Brian was moved by the plight of a young boy with a cleft palate, and came up with a new and brilliant solution. Instead of sending American doctors on short and expensive overseas missions to fix these birth defects, why not work with local doctors to help children in their own communities year-round?There were many who told him that it couldn' t be done, but Brian was determined. Today, the organization called Smile Train, which he cofounded in 1998, is responsible for fixing the cleft lips and palates of more than 650,000 poverty-stricken children worldwide. And for the first time in human history, the number of children with unrepaired clefts in the world has stopped going up, and has started going down."One Smile at a Time" is told from the perspective of Smile Train' s dynamic founder, but at the heart of the book are the true heroes of Smile Train-- the men, women, and children who make this work possible. Replete with compelling anecdotes about families, donors, and doctors, the book reveals how the charity' s surgeries have transformed the lives of children and of the communities around them, from China and India, to Haiti and Afghanistan.Included here are lessons of extraordinary courage, faith, and compassion. We encounter a peasant woman who saved and adopted a newborn baby with a cleft palate who had been left to die in a box on the side of the road. We learn about the U.S. soldier in Baghdad who helped give a three-year old Iraqi boy not only a new smile, but a new chance in life. And we meet the selfless local doctors who, through their work with Smile Train, are helping children who would otherwise be ostracized or forgotten.