Virginia Beach school raises thousands for Operation Smile
'This is what I like to call it a passion project,' said Lizzie Meyers, a fourth-grade teacher at ODS. 'This has been a long time coming.'
Several years ago, Meyers created a club at the school to teach children about , which is based in Virginia Beach.
'They understand that the whole platform of Operation Smile is to improve lives of our children around the world who have [a] cleft palate and need the surgeries and don't have the means to do it themselves,' Meyers said.
That brings us to .
ODS held multiple fundraisers earning $6,000 to have a dolphin statue placed in their school. Meyers said the Operation Smile Club at ODS let students and staff know they wanted to earn the statue, but they needed the help of everyone, and everyone stepped up.
'We started fundraising early in the year,' Meyers said. 'Candy grams are a huge hit at our school. So, we did candy grams for Halloween, and then we did candy grams again right around winter break. Then, we had the highlight of their year, which is the middle school dance. We did candy grams again for Valentine's Day. So, candy crahams are a big hit.'
Funds raised go to programs at Operation Smile to provide leadership training for Hampton Roads students and to help with the costs of surgery for people born around the world with cleft palate conditions. Over the last three years, the Operation Smile Club at ODS has raised more than $14,000 for the organization.
'In years past. we've always done fundraising to just give to Operation Smile, and their goal has always been to try to beat the year before,' Meyers said. 'So, they know that a surgery is around $250. So they always try to breakdown our donation to see how many surgeries, and then we have morning announcements every morning, and that's a big highlight. They like to be able to tell everyone as a community we came together and we helped make this difference, so we can be proud of the fact that we earned this many surgeries this year.'
ODS seventh grader Peyton Smith won her school's design competition for the dolphin.
'It's just something that's really special to me,' Peyton said. 'We got an opportunity that we were able to design for Operation Smile how we could picture it in our mind and have it come to life, and for me, I feel like the ocean and the beach is like my house, and I feel like everyone at ODS should feel welcome in their own home, and you should be [at] a place where everyone feels comfortable. It's like a good learning environment, and since we represent, like, rising tide at each grade level, we have a different team of animals and stuff like that, I really thought that Virginia Beach should be represented by a home, like the beach. That was my inspiration.'
The details painted on the dolphin are vibrant. The mission is life changing, and ODS now, and forever, has a symbol of the difference the school community has made.
'We have been told that we are the first elementary and middle school, public school, in Virginia Beach to earn the dolphin statue,' Meyers said. 'So we're very proud of that.'
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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