The Smile Project

About This Profile

December 2020 Update: Thanks so much to all who have supported my fundraiser and helped me reach my initial goal. My goal amount has now been increased to $5,000 to help even more children.

My name is Julia Decker and I was adopted from China. I was born with a bilateral cleft lip and palate and lived in an orphanage for the first 3 1/2 years of my life. Someone anonymously sponsored my lip repair when I was in China. If I had not received this amazing gift, I might still be living in an orphanage and not with my amazing family. I am eternally grateful and want to pay it forward and help other children like myself. I have had the opportunity to work with an amazing organization (LWB) for the past several years. My main goal is to help as many babies as possible that have been born with a cleft lip and help them go one step forward into a better life. I would like to build on my project as a high school junior now to continue to raise funds to sponsor the surgeries of children with cleft needs. My community is not just my hometown, but also my brothers and sisters living in orphanages in China and in other parts of the world. I hope I can bring a smile to their faces. It's my goal to keep helping these children!