The Operation Smile Final Mile is part of the Yuengling Shamrock Marathon weekend, held in Virginia Beach, VA. The Operation Smile Final Mile is designed to teach children the importance of exercise, commitment, and helping children who are born with facial deformities. Students run in school and/or at their home during the months leading up to the race to complete 25.2 miles and in March, they run their ‘final mile’ for a total of 26.2 miles, the equivalent of one marathon. The program was started 5 years ago and had 300 elementary aged student finishers. This past year the program had 2,500 finishers and over 209 schools represented. The Shamrock Marathon partnered with Operation Smile 3 years ago as title of the event to not only fight childhood obesity but to also introduce the idea of philanthropy to the children. It only takes $240.00 to fix a cliff palette in a child and that was a goal that the program put out to each school. In the last 3 years children have raised over $160,000 for Operation Smile by participating in the Final Mile Program, helping more than 660 children suffering from cleft lips, cleft palates, and other facial deformities to receive free corrective surgery.