Of all the heroes I have listed here, the oldest was Walter Haefner at 105 years old. Georgie Exarchakis was five years old when he started helping the Smile Train.
Georgie was born with a severe cleft lip and palate. But since he was born in America, Georgie received surgery within months after being born.
One day, when Georgie was in the waiting room at his surgeon’s office with his mom, he saw a Smile Train brochure with the big picture I’d taken of a young boy in India with an unrepaired cleft.
Georgie had no idea what it was.
“What’s wrong with this boy?” he asked his mom showing her the brochure.
“He was born with a cleft,” she told him. “Just like you.”
Georgie shook his head. He didn’t understand because Georgie looked nothing like this kid.
That’s when his mom realized that Georgie never knew what he looked like before his surgery. Georgie had never actually seen an unrepaired cleft. Few Americans ever do.
His mom tried to explain. “Georgie, you looked the same as this boy way right after you were born. But you had surgery that fixed your cleft. This boy lives in India and he’s very poor. His parents can’t afford to pay for surgery. That’s why he looks like this.”
Georgie paused for a minute and then asked his mom, “Why don’t you pay for his surgery?”
His mom laughed and told him that maybe they could help this boy. But there were many other boys and girls with unrepaired clefts in the world. It would cost an awful lot of money to pay for all of their cleft surgeries. She explained that Smile Train was a charity that was raising money to help children with unrepaired clefts.
“Maybe we could raise some money to help these kids get surgery, what do you think Georgie?” She asked him but he wasn’t listening. He was too busy looking the Smile Train brochure and all the kids who never got surgery.
The Exarchakis family knew just how difficult and painful life can be with him unrepaired cleft. Georgie was born with a severe bilateral cleft lip in a severe cleft palate. There was a time when his parents were afraid Georgie would never be able to talk. He underwent a series of major surgeries and treatments that started when he was three months old and will continue until he is in his 20s.
A few days later Georgie began fundraising for the Smile Train. He recruited his mom and his sister Maria to go with him, door-to-door, asking people for donations. Georgie h would explain that he too was born with a cleft and how lucky he was that he lived in America and had access to surgery. Much luckier than this boy he would say as he showed people the Smile Train brochure, he had taken home from his surgeon’s office.
You can imagine how hard it would be to say no to that appeal. In just a few hours, Georgie and his support team returned home with a bag full of donations. Georgie added it all up and it came to around $50. Not bad for a five-year-old’s first fundraising campaign.
But it wasn’t enough for Georgie. The next week he was back at it, going door-to-door with his mom and his sister, telling his story, asking for help. Georgi got very good at explaining the problem of unrepaired clefts in developing countries and at tugging at heartstrings. Who can say no to this kid?
At the Smile Train, we started receiving Georgie’s donations with letters from his mom. At first the amounts are small but then they started to grow. And grow. And they kept coming. We started to wonder who was this kid?
At the time we had hundreds of schools and thousands of students who would raise money for the Smile Train. They would do car washes, dances, raffles, dunking booths, you name it and then send all the money they raised to us with incredible photos and inspiring letters explaining why they wanted to help. But the vast majority of them would do it once a year and that would be it. Georgie was like the Energizer Bunny, he kept going and going.
At one-point Georgie somehow get a meeting with Johnson & Johnson, probably the biggest corporation in New Jersey. And Georgi asked them if they would double any money, he could raise for the Smile Train. “Of course, we well!” Some J&J executive said probably thinking it would cost a couple hundred dollars. But he didn’t know Georgie.
Georgie and his family organize a special fundraising dinner at which they told everyone about the match from Johnson & Johnson and they raised tens of thousands of dollars.
Georgie’s relentless campaign to eradicate unrepaired collapse in the developing world went on for years. When he was 11 years old, CBS featured him on their network news.
Over the years, Georgie had raised more than $40,000 in donations for the Smile Train and he had personally helped underwrite the cost of surgery for more than 160 children.
The CBS reporter came to our offices and he asked me what I thought of Georgie Exarchakis. As you will see in the video clip, I told him that Georgie was my hero.
12 years later, he still is.
