Operation Smile Co-founders Dr. Bill and Kathy Magee receive award. Photo by Chris Stump

This year, Kathy Magee, 62, a former pediatric nurse and social worker, and her husband, Bill, a plastic surgeon, 63, will celebrate their 25th anniversary. But it’s not what you think. Back in 1982, the couple founded Operation Smile, an organization that provides free surgery throughout the world to facially deformed children, mostly with cleft palates and lips.

To mark this milestone, volunteers will be operating simultaneously in 25 countries (get the 25 connection?) on 5,000 children over the course of nine days. Bill will kick off the first operation in the Philippines on Nov. 7, and perform the final surgery in Mexico. And the couple is hoping to have their daughter and 10-year-old grandson, Alec, join them for the Mexican leg of the mission.

We recently spoke with Kathy about the meshing of her career and her grandparenting.

Grandparents.com: Is Operation Smile a family business?

Kathy Magee: We have five children and nine grandchildren, and they’ve grown up with Operation Smile. We started bringing our children on trips, and they got their cousins and friends involved. Now my grandchildren talk about Operation Smile.

GP: Aren’t they pretty young?

KM: The 4-year-old said to me recently, “Hey, Nonna” — their name for me — “I have some good ideas to raise more money for surgery.” She suggested having contests and using smiley faces. And she’s only 4! And Alec was just elected vice president of his elementary school. I asked, “What was your platform?” He put his hands on his hips and said, “Operation Smile,” like, “Are you kidding me? What else would it be?”

GP: Does that mean your grandkids consider your work cool?

KM: Yes. My three grandsons, ages 10, 8 and 6, all ran for physical fitness and Operation Smile this year. In Virginia Beach, where there is a marathon, my daughter and her friends organized grammar-school kids to raise money for Operation Smile while staying physically fit. So students who run the equivalent of 25 miles in gym class throughout the year can run alongside marathoners the last mile of a race. Each child must raise $240, the cost of one Operation Smile surgery.

GP: Have your grandkids ever met Operation Smile children?

KM: One of the boys played on my grandson’s baseball team. The organization not only sends physicians to operate on kids in other parts of the world but brings more-complicated cases to the United States.

GP: Speaking of baseball, are you an active grandma?

KM: I don’t even think my grandchildren think of me as a grandmother, but more like a friend who does stuff with them. I like to get rough-and-tumble with them.

GP: Do you think your youthful style affects your grandparenting?

KM: Sure. I love being active with them. I just came back from a hiking, biking and whitewater-rafting trip with one of my daughters and her four kids, as well as my daughter’s friend and her five children. I had the 4-year-old on my bike, and there were nine children and three women. And last summer all five of our kids and their children went to Utah and we all hiked, biked and rappelled up the side of a mountain. Sometimes we have doctors or patients from other parts of the world who join us.

GP: Wow! Do you think your life’s work has affected your kids and grandkids?

KM: I’m sure of it. They think about what they can do in their own communities. And that’s critical. Because, as my husband says, if you were to spin a roulette wheel, what would be the chances you would wind up where you are today instead of being in a rice paddy?