Evan Dupart, a 4th year Economics major, is being spotlighted for his outstanding commitment to UVa’ s chapter of Operation Smile. Operation Smile raises money and awareness to provide surgeries to children in developing countries who are born with facial deformities – the most prevalent being cleft palates. This past weekend, Evan helped run the annual Halloween event, S’ mores for Smiles. This S’ mores for Smiles event was the most successful one in the club’ s history bringing in over $5,000 that will provide children with over 20 surgeries. Evan’ s inspiration for his involvement with Operation Smile is that he feels like he can personally impact children’ s lives by raising money and awareness in our community. Evan explains, “ All too often it seems that people raise money for charities and never actually see the results of their efforts, but this isn’ t the case with Operation Smile. You know that every $240 you send to the organization is going to support another surgery, and you can actually see thousands of ‘ before and after’ pictures to prove it.”
Evan’ s future plans include medical school. He hopes to use his doctor’ s license to lead Operation Smile missions all over the world. Evan’ s future goals for the club here at UVa is to make the UVa Operation smile chapter the largest university supporter of the national organization in the next few years. He admitted, “ I know it will be difficult, but in my mind, with strong leadership and a motivated group of students the sky is the limit.” The online donation campaign is still open for S’ mores for Smiles. If you would like to make a donation please visit the link: http://support.operationsmile.org/goto/uvasmoresforsmiles. If you would like to get involved with or learn more about UVa’ s Operation Smile chapter, you can contact Evan Dupart directly at eld2y@virginia.edu.
