My mom used to say it all the time…

“Never resist a generous impulse.”

And she and my dad never did.

As a child, I remember how they generously supported local hospitals, schools, churches and all kinds of charities. One summer, we adopted a very poor, inner-city kid who moved in with us.

My dad was the top lawyer at Gillette, where he helped create a program that offered free legal services for the poor.

When I started Smile Train, my parents became major donors right away.

Over the years, their large donations to Smile Train and to WonderWork sponsored tens of thousands of surgeries.

When Smile Train expanded to 90+ countries, I hired my dad for one dollar a year to visit Smile Train partner hospitals that I couldn’t get to.

I had three young kids at home so I could only travel so much. I really appreciated his help.

My dad would go anywhere and his experience as a former Vice Chairman of The Gillette Company really came in handy.

While he was Vice Chairman of The Gillette Company, he and my mom traveled to more than 100 countries around the world to open new factories, thank and motivate employees, negotiate agreements with partners, etc. And he had a lot more gravitas than I did so our partners always loved his visits.

My dad did a great job “waving the Smile Train flag” in challenging places like Pakistan, Indonesia, Afghanistan, India and China.

My parents were always spreading the word and introducing Smile Train and WonderWork to all of their friends, many of whom became major donors and supporters.

• Supreme Court Justice Nino Scalia used to work with my dad when we lived in Cleveland and he came to one of our Smile Train donor events in D.C. and became a donor.
• The Mayor of Boston hosted a fancy lunch when I wanted to bring my Operation Smile inner-city school program to Boston.
• Warren Buffett became a big Smile Train and WonderWork supporter because he was friends with my dad. They both sat on the Gillette Board of Directors and both played the ukelele.
• My dad’s former law firm, Jones Day, donated a lot of free legal services for my first charity in New York City, Operation Smile and then later with Smile Train.
• Jones Day represented all the independent directors of Smile Train pro bono when they went to the New York State Attorney General to stop Charles Wang’s merger attempt.
• Jones Day defended WonderWork successfully when Wang’s lawyers filed a Federal lawsuit against us.

In May 2004, my parents came down to New York City from Boston for our big Smile Train donor thank you event celebrating our first 100,000 surgeries.

It was an extraordinary evening. More than 1,800 donors came from 40 different states including Alaska. Candice Bergen was one of our celebrity speakers and we flew in one of our best surgeons, Dr. Adenwalla from India, and Wang Li, Smile Train patient #1. There were more than a dozen standing ovations that night.

My parents were overwhelmed and proud of course to see how big Smile Train had grown. They could still remember when we started out with just a couple hundred donors.

Now we were raising more than $50 million a year and helping to provide surgeries and more than 75 countries the year.

It had been quite a journey and they had been there supporting me and Smile Train every single step of the way.

I hadn’t seen my mom that happy in quite a while. And she almost fainted when she learned she was seated next to Alex Trebek at the dinner afterwards. She and my dad watched Jeopardy every night religiously for years, so this was a real thrill for her. Alex, as usual, was exceptionally debonair and charming.

I was really grateful my parents came down to attend this event. Especially since my mom passed away, unexpectedly, just a few weeks after our event. (Ironically, while she and my dad were was watching Jeopardy.)

She left behind four successful sons who are all active in various charitable activities and ever faithful followers of their mom’s favorite credo…

 

“Never resist a generous impulse.”