Mission to Lima

For the last two years, The Smile Network has been the most talked-about charity in the Twin Cities. It’s not the only organization that fixes smiles around the world; there’s Operation Smile (the largest and first, based in Norfolk, Virginia), New York–based Smile Train, and Children’s Surgery International, headquartered in Minneapolis—all of them high profile and apparently successful in raising money and fulfilling their mission. In fact, while Smile Network is in Peru, Jessica Simpson is testifying on behalf of Operation Smile at a congressional hearing in Washington. Celebrities such as Bette Midler and Jane Kaczmarek have thrown their support behind The Smile Train. Who wouldn’t attach themselves to these organizations? There is something universally appealing about the seemingly magical before-and-after transformation of the children who have undergone this surgery.

Locally, the Smile Network has attracted all kinds of celebrity attention. There was the reception at Escape before last summer’s Invitational Celebrity Bass Fishing Tournament (the one where Randy Moss showed up after being traded to the Raiders) and La Belle Vie’s grand opening party. Smile Network has been featured on HBO, MTV, and ESPN, on the local news, and in the Star Tribune, where C. J. has taken a special interest in the semicelebs who show up at the parties—most notably Minnetonka’s Kelly Carlson, who serves as Smile’s official “celebrity spokesperson” and, in an ironic twist of what marketing types once called “synergy,” is the star of cable’s salacious Nip/Tuck plastic-surgery drama.

The driving force behind Smile Network is founder Kim Valentini. The forty-seven-year-old former restaurant manager has the beatific countenance and kind eyes of Meryl Streep in Defending Your Life. After serving on the board of Operation Smile for several years, she was inspired—while watching an episode of Oprah, she says—to start her own organization. She and her husband, prominent defense attorney David Valentini, have two children, and she says her reasons for founding Smile Network came down to a primal emotion. “I can’t imagine being a parent and not being able to provide something for your child,” she explains. “All people have the desire to fit in—to be part of something. But for these kids, fitting in is not part of the equation.”

Martin Lacey, who practices privately in Woodbury, is another of the Twin Cities’ top cleft surgeons. “I never get bored with this surgery,” he tells me outside the operating room in Lima. The other surgeons on this Smile Network mission agree. Marie Christensen, who works out of Park Nicollet Clinic in St. Louis Park, says that there is both an artistic and a technical challenge to repairing a cleft, especially a cleft lip. After the first day of surgery, on the shuttle bus returning to the hotel, Christensen says, “I don’t know why I made that incision on that lip a millimeter to either side. It’s just why I get paid. It’s innate. You can’t teach that stuff. It’s like asking Julia Child how much salt she uses—a pinch more or less makes a difference.” Every lip is different. “One side is never going to be perfect,” she says. “You’re doomed to failure, but the challenge is always there.”