Fresh from the recent success of their third consecutive Top 5 album, ‘Saturday Night At The Movies’, five piece vocal harmony group The Overtones have teamed up with Operation Smile UK to release a festive version of the 1954 Nat King Cole classic ‘Smile’ to raise money for the international cleft lip and palate charity.
Available to pre-order on iTunes from Monday 18th November and to download from Monday 16th December, 100% of net profits from each single will go directly to the charity. For just £1.99 the single includes the ‘Smile’ music track, official ‘Smile’ music video and two bonus Christmas tracks from The Overtones, ‘Winter Wonderland’ and ‘White Christmas’.
Operation Smile is an international charity dedicated to providing free cleft lip and cleft palate surgery for children around the globe. Following a trip to Rwanda to volunteer at one of Operation Smile’s medical projects in September The Overtones were so moved by what they saw they wanted to do more to help and recorded a heart-warming version of ‘Smile’ to help raise £56,000 to fund a return trip to Rwanda in April to help children still waiting for an operation.
Cleft lips and cleft palates are the third most common birth defect globally and every three minutes a child is born with the debilitating, but easily treatable condition.
It can cost just £150 to transform a child’s life forever with an operation that can take as little as 45 minutes.
Operation Smile has completed over 200,000 surgeries on children and young adults in 60 countries worldwide so far and for every 75 singles sold, a smile will be brought to a child’s face in 2014.
Lachie Chapman from The Overtones commented "Visiting Operation Smile’s medical project in Rwanda was a really humbling trip for us; seeing children whose lives are devastated by cleft lips and cleft palates and the transformation in their lives post-surgery was incredible.
“We are so pleased to be supporting Operation Smile this Christmas and raising awareness of such a valuable cause.”
Alex Talbot, CEO at Operation Smile commented “Since 2009, we have provided 1,000 people in Rwanda with life changing cleft operations. But, with 4,000 people still in need of surgery and up to 300 children born each year with the clefts in the country, the need is still great. We must raise £56,000 to fund our next project in Rwanda in April 2014 and that is why we are so delighted at the generosity of The Overtones recording ‘Smile’ as a charity Christmas single on our behalf.”
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To pre-order the single go to iTunes.
