CoMO Smile

Using Photography to Challenge Financial Strains

Allison Bernt

CoMO Smile is addressing the impact financial status has on the ability to participate in traditions alongside peers. Operation Smile hopes to answer the question, how can the strains of financial status be minimized? It is important to explore ways to minimize the impact of financial status because many students attending Battle High School (and other Columbia Public Schools) face this challenge everyday. To address this issue, Operation Smile was created. Its primary goal is to provide a free senior photo experience to seniors in need. We do this through volunteer student photographers.

The primary goal of CoMO Smile is to provide free and high quality photos to seniors who may not otherwise be able to afford them. We do this in partnership with student photographers who volunteer their time and talent in exchange for valuable experience and personal achievement. CoMO Smile provides free high quality photos to seniors in need. We have an application process where students get the chance to tell their story and show us why they are good candidates for the program. When a student is awarded a grant from the program, we set them up with a portrait shoot and an outdoor shoot. We edit their photos and print physical copies to share with loved ones; they receive all photos digitally.

We use volunteer student photographers to take photos for our seniors. We do this to not only save money, but to let our talented students gain experience that they can use to market themselves as freelancers or add to a portfolio for college or career use. We are very proud of this initiative and hope to have more student photographers join our program. These photographers are essential to our program because the more who volunteer, the more students we can accept into the program.

If you would like to volunteer or donate to CoMO Smile please contact Mr. Matt Leuchtmann at MLeuchtmann@cpsk12.org.