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The WIDE SMILES Lacy Marie Memorial Scholarship is named for a very special little person, Lacy Marie Schnatterer.
Lacy was born, the first child of John and Christine Schnatterer. A beautiful baby girl, she was born with a craniofacial condition that would end her life before it had a chance to begin. She was born with anencephaly. Anencephaly is a condition that affects the brain and, in Lacy Marie's case, the structure of the cranium as well. Many of the bones that should have protected Lacy's brain were missing, and Lacy's life lasted only a few hours.
Five years later, two years after the birth of a healthy son, John and Christine producted their third child, a son, Jesse. Once again, the Schnatterer baby was affected by a craniofacial anomaly. Jesse was born with a very wide, very severe bilateral cleft lip and palate. Although the Schnatterer family began then to deal with the challenges of cleft repair, they did so with the strength and resolve of a family who feels blessed knowing they are dealing with a correctable defect.
As Jesse grew and as his repairs got underway, Christine chose to help other families who might also deal with the challenges associated with craniofacial problems in their children. She helped to start a fledgling publication that had taken on the awesome task of providing information and support to families of children born with cleft lip and palate. That publication was, of course, WIDE SMILES, and we soon grew to reach families in all 50 States and many other countries. Christine and her family were very instrumental in the early success of this publication.
Lacy Marie lived such a short life, but her life touched the people around her. She helped to give her mother the resolve to help others, and that resolve helped to develop a nation-wide resource.
Because of the severity of her craniofacial condition, Lacy Marie was not allowed to live her life. And yet, perhaps through her memory, by means of this scholarship, others who were also born with a craniofacial condition may have greater opportunity to maximize theirs.
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