Westover Seniors Raise Funds for Operation Smile

Middlebury, Connecticut – There were a lot of smiles around Westover School on April 25th and, as a result, they helped to put special smiles on the faces of two children.

Most of the smiles that day could be found around a photo booth set up in the School’s main hallway from 10 am to 2 pm. Students, faculty and staff, and even students’ grandparents (who were visiting campus for Grandparents Day activities) lined up to have their photos taken in groups of two, three, or more who crowded into the photo booth to mug for a series of quick snapshots. Funny hats and other props were available to add a touch of silliness to the old-fashioned “selfies” – filmstrips featuring a set of four color or black-and-white images – that the photo booth produced.

All proceeds from the sale of the film strips – which were sold for $2.50 each – were donated to Operation Smile, an international children’s medical charity that performs cleft lip and cleft palate surgery and provides postoperative and ongoing medical therapies to children in low and middle income countries around the world.

“We made $484.80,” said Erika Malapad-Trentalange ’14 of Middlebury, who, along with classmate Chloe Anello, of Newburgh, New York, had suggested the photo booth fundraiser as a senior class community service project. Because the charity estimates that the average surgery costs $240, enough funds were raised that day to underwrite operations for two children who needed the surgery.

Each class at Westover is expected to sponsor an annual community service project. When Kate Taylor, Assistant Director of Community Service, met with the seniors last fall to select a project for their class, Malapad-Trentalange and Anello proposed the photo booth fundraiser on behalf of Operation Smile.

“I had suggested to Chloe that we do Operation Smile because it is an organization that is close to me and my family,” Malapad-Trentalange said. “Both of my parents, who are anesthesiologists, have been a part of Operation Smile. My dad used to go on a mission every year to places like China, Ethiopia, India, Egypt, and the Philippines. His trip to the Philippines is where my parents actually met, because my mom was working as a doctor there.” When Malapad-Trentalange was in sixth grade, she recalled, her family even spent a vacation in Egypt while her father served there as a member of an Operation Smile team.

“We wanted to do something original to raise money that wasn't a jeans day or a bake sale,” Malapad-Trentalange said. “I thought it should be something related to smiling and pictures, since Operation Smile is about fixing smiles. That’s how Chloe and I came up with the photo booth.”

Because the photo booth was being used for a charitable event, Malapad-Trentalange and Anello were able to arrange for DJ International of Watertown, Connecticut, to provide it for $400, half the usual rental price. Debbie Verzino, senior class advisor, then worked with Malapad-Trentalange and Anello to contact several area organizations to seek donations to cover the $400 rental fee. “The Dental Society of Greater Waterbury responded immediately and sent a check for $100,” Verzino said. The remaining $300 came from a source closer to home: Verzino’s husband, Joseph, who happens to be a dentist. As the parent of a Westover alumna [daughter Jill, Class of 2012], a lover of Westover, and a local dentist, Dr. Verzino was happy to support the effort on behalf of Operation Smile.