A World Treasure

Living in San Agustín Etla is an extraordinary person called Hanni Sager. Hanni is a world treasure. For many years, she’s suffered from muscular dystrophy-a serious and painful disease-and she’s severely disabled by it. But it’s only her body that’s suffering, not her mind and spirit, which are deeply healthy. She’s a model for us all.

Hanni is a passionate woman with a strength that flows from a fountain of good will and common sense. You could call her opinionated: Among her unshakeable convictions is that anyone who doesn’t know how to play isn’t fully human. That a just society will see a meaningful integration of the able and the disabled. That what is false is abominable.

Utahns give new smiles to children in Mexico

June 16th, 2008
A group of Utahns just returned from a humanitarian mission to Mexico with the charity Operation Smile. The charity sponsors cleft lip and cleft palate surgeries for children throughout the world.

Many Utahns have been involved for more than 25 years, and that volunteer list is growing as more groups travel to see for themselves how lives are changed.

Hundreds of children wait in line, their parents hope and wonder will our child be chosen? During one week this June, more than 130 children’s faces changed. Cleft lips and palates were fixed.

Each Operation Smile mission costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to transport people and equipment to foreign countries. That’s where corporate sponsors come in.

Joe Morton and his brother, Gordon, commit a portion of XanGo’s profits to children’s’ charities, like Operation Smile.