Author: Brooke Hira

In continued support for the Children’s Health of Orange County (CHOC) Cleft and Craniofacial Program, Just A Smile has spent the last year of the pandemic raising money through sponsors, fundraisers, and generous donations! We had the opportunity to meet up with the Cleft/Craniofacial Program Coordinator, Sharon Vargas, and the …

As part of Just A Smile’s ongoing support for children’s cleft lip and plate surgeries and care in developing countries, Just A Smile made a $1,500 donation to Project Vietnam. With the help of donations like these, Dr. Wu, Dr. Kieu, and many other wonderful doctors travel to Vietnam every …

Due to the pandemic and school being on-line last year we were unable to have our annual Tesoro HS and San Juan Hills HS Club Rush events. We are so excited to be back on campus this year and to be able to promote Just A Smile again! The effect …

Please join us for some upcoming fundraisers to support Just A Smile and eat some fantastic food in fun atmospheres: The Stand in Rancho Santa Margarita on Wednesday, September 29 from 11am to 9pm Chipotle in Mission Viejo on Wednesday, October 13 from 5pm to 9pm Just click on the …

One of our missions at Project C.A.K.E. is to engage and inspire younger generations to help make the world a little better. It was a wonderful day at the YMCA! Our workshop began with Brooke reading her book A Million Small Things. The kids were captivated by the book’s colorful …

The City of Mission Viejo’s Oso Fit Virtual 5k run was absolute success! Although we could not all run together in person, there were many of you that supported us and did your running virtually while helping us raise enough money to fund two cleft lip and palate surgeries. Way …

Are you looking for a fun and healthy activity to do?  Please join us and support Just A Smile as we raise money and get fit with the City of Mission Viejo’s annual Oso Fit5K run.  Due to the pandemic, the event will be held virtually this year which makes it …

Just A Smile is happy that we were able to make donations to both Smile Train and Operation Smile again this year! Both organizations provide free cleft lip and palate surgeries to children in impoverished third-world communities world-wide. Without organizations such as these, many of these children would not be …

With Christmas just a few days away, Just A Smile was able to help bring a little Christmas cheer to families in need. With our final food drive for 2020, we were able to collect over 300 pounds of food to donate to Families Assistance Ministries. In total we have …

A big thanks to all of you who have used Amazon Smile to purchase the items you buy on Amazon throughout the year. By selecting Just A Smile as your charity for your purchases through Amazon Smile, Amazon has donated proceeds that have allowed us to fund a good portion …

With so many families still affected by the pandemic and needing food assistance, we here at Just A Smile wanted to continue our efforts to help. We are looking for donations of canned items and dry goods to deliver to Family Assistance Ministries before the end of the year. Any …

It’s finally here!! I’ve been working on my children’s book for quite some time now but between school, activities and everything else it has taken me a while to finish. 🙂  I’m really happy to announce the arrival of my first book and super excited to share it with everyone! …

With businesses starting to open back up again, we were optimistic and hopeful that the economy would recover but with the rise of COVID-19 once again, Governor Gavin Newsom has stepped in to help flatten the curve. To assure that every family and individual is able to access the proper …

For the past two months, Just A Smile members have been working hard to gather food donations from their local neighborhoods and we were able to collect over 1000 lbs of food to Mission Viejo’s Food Drive! Our team came together and after several hours of sorting and packing up …

Wearing a mask has become a health necessity as we continue to battle the COVID-19 pandemic. The CDC recommends that masks be worn whenever we are in a public place to fight  the spread of the virus.  Just A Smile has homemade cloth masks that we are donating to anyone …

In our continued efforts to assist local residents and our community during the COVID-19 pandemic, Just A Smile is collecting food for the City’s drive-thru food pantry.  Many families are struggling to put food on the table and are turning to food pantries for some assistance. With the increase of …

This week, Just A Smile member, Jenna Huff, delivered cookies to the orange county sheriff’s office as a way to thank them for their service in protecting the community especially during this pandemic. Using her love for baking, Jenna made dozens of individually wrapped cookies for the deputies and staff.  …

A huge thank you to everyone who generously donated to Just A Smile so that we could support local residents impacted by COVID-19. Through several fundraisers we were able to raise over $1500 to aid two local charities.  Project Access serves more than 140 low-income families and StandUp for Kids, …

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to progress, many businesses and families have been adversely affected. Many of the small, local businesses have lost a large portion of their revenues due to the stay-at-home order and may not survive the duration of the crisis. Many families are also struggling due to …

As the days and weeks of this pandemic progress, many families are unable to obtain necessary supplies. Just A Smile has recently been preparing for Project Vietnam’s Mission Trip and we have collected many bottles of children’s tylenol and motrin, diapers and children’s vitamins. The mission trip was scheduled to …

Just A Smile is currently collecting donations for the upcoming Project Vietnam mission trip this year.  Doctors and nurses on the mission will provide free cleft lip and palate surgeries to underprivileged children in Vietnam. We are in need of post-surgery care items and would appreciate donations of the following items: * …

Put on your running shoes, grab your family and friends and join Just A Smile for the city of Mission Viejo’s Oso Fit 5k run on Saturday, February 29.  Get fit and help Just A Smile raise funds for our local cleft lip and palate community. The city of Mission …

Many thanks to the following corporations for their generous donations to Just A Smile! We truly appreciate the matching donations, gift cards, merchandise and fundraising support. 100% of all donations go to support our local craniofacial families within the community as well as to organizations serving to help children in …

Take the day off from cooking and join Just A Smile at Panda Express!  On February 7 we are holding a fundraiser at Panda Express in Ladera Ranch and 20% of all dining proceeds will be donated to Just A Smile! Please be sure to present either the electronic or …

Just A Smile is growing!  We are so excited to welcome a new campus chapter of Just A Smile at San Juan Hills High School! During their club rush, President Jenna Huff and Vice President Samantha Gugliuzza were able to sign up 25 new members!  The club has already been …

              The second annual Just A Smile club rush at Tesoro High School was another success!  We are happy to announce we’ve added another 45 members!                             The hard work and dedication …

It was a fun day at the third annual CHOC Craniofacial family event! This year was luau themed and the Just A Smile team had a blast!   One of the events was “Dunk your Doctor” in a dunk tank and the 300+ families who showed up definitely enjoyed it! …

Just A Smile is excited to announce that we have partnered with Amazon’s AmazonSmile program to help support our cause! When you shop using AmazonSmile (smile.amazon.com), and select Just A Smile as your designated charity or use the link https://smile.amazon.com/ch/81-5412856 , Amazon will donate 0.5% of the purchase price to …

Just A Smile would like to give a huge thank you to 4Imprint for their generous grant! Applying through 4Imprint’s One by One Program, our organization was awarded $500 to purchase any merchandise we wanted. 4Imprint offers a large selection of customized logo products and after browsing the hundreds of …

Project Vietnam (projectvietnam.org) is an organization that provides cleft lip and palate surgeries and post-operative support to impoverished children in the rural areas of Vietnam who would not otherwise be able to afford this life-changing surgery. Our goal at Just A Smile was to help Project Vietnam collect the much …

The Just A Smile Team is back at it again! We had another bake sale this January and it was a hit! We would love to thank all of our volunteers for their hard work and dedication! We raised $130 woohoo:). We also would like to thank everyone who stopped …

A big shout-out to Guys Giv’n Back for letting Just A Smile join their 8th annual Mission Viejo garage sale extravaganza fundraiser!  Through many generous donations from our community, our teams were able to raise over a thousand dollars. A great big thank you to Christy Wrightson of Guys Giv’n …

This past July was Cleft and Craniofacial Awareness Month and I was so excited to be a part of the celebration at the CHOC Craniofacial department’s 2nd annual family event at the Santa Ana Zoo!  The event brought together over 300 patients and family members! It was a great day …

         Thanks to the support of my awesome middle school, we were able to raise over $200 selling Otter Pops after school this past week! We received generous donations of Otter Pop cases from members of our PRIDE Stars program, led by Ms. Vollebregt. Special thanks to …