Rotarians Barbara Fisher, Jim Richardson, Rick Spors and Augusta Pediatrician, Gary Billingsley, shared their first hand experiences of their Alliance for Smiles Missions with the Rotary Club of Greene and Putnam Counties.

Barbara Fisher, a member of the Rotary of Greene and Putnam Counties for several years, and who was recently named Alliance for Smiles (AFS) volunteer of the year, completed six missions to China for cleft palate surgeries in 2007. Her leadership role in each mission, her passion for helping the children with cleft palates and her volunteer spirit have motivated many local Rotarians to participate in the 2008 Missions.

Rotarians Jim Richardson (Baiyin, China – February, 2008 Mission) and Rick Spors (Yichang,China – April, 2008 Mission), had the responsibilities of photographer/videographer in photographing each child, documenting the pre operative, intra operative and post operative course. They were able to share their photos with the Rotary and as members viewed the children in the pre-operative photos, their eyes were drawn to their defects. However as they viewed the post op photos, they saw beauty, happiness and hope — a hope shared by the children’s families that their child would now be accepted and would have an opportunity to have a productive life.

During the Mission to Baiyin, the AFS team saw 176 patients and performed 136 surgical procedures.

The Mission team to Yichang, China provided 123 patients cleft palate surgery and had the distinction of photographing and performing surgery on the 1,000th child receiving the surgery since AFS’s creation. Dr. Gary Billingsley, a pediatrician in Augusta and Medical Mission Director for Trinity on The Hill United Methodist Church, Augusta, Ga., joined the trip with Barbara and Jim to Baiyin. Dr. Billingsley is personally motivated to help the poor and impoverished children in the world and stated: “he feels this ‘calling’ has catapulted him to a life he otherwise would not have.”

AFS is a non-profit organization, formed by the San Francisco Rotary Club several years ago, and is supported by Rotary Clubs around the world. They organize and send teams of skilled medical volunteers to China five times a year to perform corrective cleft lip and palate surgeries. The surgeons and support staff come from countries all over the world.