Angel Faces — healing retreats and ongoing support designed to inspire adolescent girls with severe facial disfigurements to achieve their optimum potential.
Dear Friends, Angel Faces' Family and Supporters:
Welcome to our world of strength and courage and a little pain too; but there is nothing we can't honor, embrace and overcome. Creating a life for ourselves with what we have to work with.
Look up! Yes, that photo is one of strength. Six years of launching hundreds of girls through pain, tears, laughter and healing. Yes, with your support we are able to touch, guide and encourage many girls on their path.
This picture above fills my heart with joy, knowing that Angel Faces has made such a difference in the future of these young women.
Girls ages 11 — 19 come from all over the country (and often the world) with different levels of excitement, pain and a willingness to make a better life for themselves.
I must share "the rest of the story" about Calais with you. You may remember Calais (now 19); she was severely burned when a chemistry class experiment went wrong. She came to Angel Faces wearing physical and emotional scars, self esteem wounded, sad, and devastated with the thought of her future as an aspiring model was now over.
With the retreat well under way; I watched Calais bend her ear and open her heart to our teachings of hope, embracing trauma. She participated in the role playing sessions on how to handle staring and teasing and how to respond positively to unwanted questions. She listened closely to our message on how we really do have the power within us to create the life we want despite what tragedy we’ve endured. Throughout the week, I saw her hope surface and a twinkle in her eye.
One important message we teach at Angel Faces is that the girls are not "burn victims”, “burn survivors", or "girls with a facial difference". They are girls first. They are daughters, sisters, friends, perhaps a good soccer player, or a good music player. Yes, they have survived a very traumatic experience with a burn injury – or being born with a birth anomolie but they are so much more than that label! Calais was getting this message. I pray she and the other girls get it – but it isn't until they return home that the proof of our message rings true.
Calais is now a junior at Wellesley College, studying to be a doctor. Through a rigorous screening process, Calais was selected to participate in a program at Wellesley called “Let Me Speak” — a dramatic presentation to the students, faculty and alumni. She was the first person in the program to speak specifically on the topic of boundaries, emotional and physical scars. Please take the time to watch her five minute speech.
In closing, I want to share my deep gratitude for your support. Our programs and the lives we touch are founded and sustained because of our partnerships giving support.
From my light within, I'm sending you a heartfelt thank you.
Lesia Cartelli
Founder and Director
