Estate-Plan Giving: Gloria Thomas Makes Bequest to Ensure Her Support for Smile Train’s Work Endures Well into the Future

Gloria Thomas grew up in Hallock, Minnesota, a small town just 20 miles from Canada. She was born with a cleft lip and palate and had her first of many surgeries in 1948, by Dr. Tague Chisholm at Children’s Minnesota Hospital. “It’s way beyond one surgery, as far as the impact on a person’s life,” she says. “Physical and psychological well-being are both impacted.”

It is important to Gloria that her support for Smile Train’s lifesaving work continues beyond her lifetime, so she made a bequest in her will that will support Smile Train well into the future. As a longtime donor, Gloria says giving this way is easy — and it allows her to “have a bigger impact on children who were born like I was.”

Gloria made her first donation to Smile Train in 2002 after learning about our work from her niece, who was a nanny for a family with three adopted children — all with clefts. It was also a way to memorialize her father, who had recently passed away. “When I was born, my dad was devastated. He’d had a classmate with an untreated cleft, and he didn’t know what his daughter’s future would be.”

In her effort to help support even more life-changing cleft treatments for children, Gloria also created “Toning with a Purpose” — an exercise class she runs at her church — and asks for donations to Smile Train from the participants.

With her examples of financial support, community advocacy, and fundraising, Gloria hopes to inspire others to consider making a legacy gift to ensure Smile Train can continue to make cleft care possible for future generations in need.

“If you really want to impact someone’s life, there’s no better way than doing this,” says Gloria. “This is an organization you need to support!”