Filipina With Upside-down Feet Walks For 1st Time

A Filipino teenager who came to New York so doctors could perform surgery to untwist her severely clubbed feet took her first unaided steps Wednesday in pink-and-white sneakers _ the first shoes she’s ever worn.

“I’m very happy,” Jingle Luis said with a smile. “It was exciting.”

The 15-year-old girl arrived at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx in May with her mother for surgery and follow-up treatment.

She had never been able to walk on her own because she was born with feet so clubbed they twisted backward and upside down, forcing her to hobble on the tops of her feet with the help of crutches.

On Wednesday, doctors took off her post-surgical casts and replaced them with special support braces.

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.

Kids open lemonade stand to help cat get surgery

OGDEN, UT – The homemade signs says it all: Buy a drink, help my cat. Aspen Granath hopes the plea will draw enough customers to her lemonade stand on a street corner to pay for expensive surgery for her cat, Patches.

The 10-year-old and her 8-year-old brother, Skylar, opened for business a few days ago and say they plan to staff the roadside stand for about four hours a day.

A spinal cord injury left the cat partially paralyzed. The children’s father said a veterinarian has recommended amputation of the leg so that Patches can have a more normal life.

The cost of the surgery, medications and other care could run as much as $700.

For thirsty passers-by, the cost of helping out is just $1 for a bottle of water and 25 cents for a packet of powdered lemonade or fruit juice.

Aspen said she’ll ”do this as long as it takes” because Patches is one of her favorite pets.

Information from: Standard-Examiner, http://www.standard.net