What goes on at a gala is too often removed from the work the gala supports. That wasn’t the case at a fund-raiser for Operation Smile on Thursday, “The Smile Event.”

All those guests smiling the night away — especially the event’s benefactors, which included Jennifer Marsico, Charlotte Moss, Andrew Tisch and his daughter Lacey Tisch-Sidney, and Vanessa and Donald Trump Jr. — couldn’t help but understand the power of a smile, after viewing photographs and a video that showed the children Operation Smile helps: those who have difficulty smiling because of facial deformities.

The connection was particularly immediate for cousins Tim, Alissa, and Ed Boyanoski, who, at the gala, were smiling wide about the trip they were about to take. On Saturday, the Boyanoskis departed on their first Operation Smile medical mission to Lima, Peru, to assist on surgeries for children with cleft lips and cleft palates.

“We’re going to help make the children feel safe and secure,” Ed Boyanoski, 22, said of their responsibilities.

The 10-day trip has brought more than 50 medical and nonmedical volunteers to work with local medical volunteers at Hospital Daniel Carrión, including the Boyanoskis’ aunt, Janet Martin, a medical photographer.

“We give people a chance to have some ownership. Everyone is a volunteer,” the founder of Operation Smile, Dr. William Magee, said.

The Norfolk, Va.-based organization has treated the facial deformities of more than 115,000 children around the world with the leadership and passion of Dr. Magee, who serves as chairman, and the organization’s president, his wife, Kathleen Magee.

Because of the limited number of doctors capable, training them to do the surgeries is just as critical as sending them to do the surgeries.

“In the U.S., there are only 300 to 400 plastic surgeons that do this work a lot, out of 6,000 plastic surgeons,” Dr. Magee said.

Operation Smile receives help from a broad range of individuals and corporations, including two companies it honored at the gala, Hasbro Inc. and Microsoft. Hasbro Inc. has donated thousands of its Mr. Potato Head toys to children undergoing the surgery.

But Hasbro’s chief executive didn’t miss the opportunity to promote purchases of his company’s products.

“I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that there are 224 days left until Christmas,” the chief executive of Hasbro, Alan Hassenfeld, said while accepting the Operation Smile award.

As for Dr. Magee, he has one important item on his Christmas list: finding the woman who thought up the name of the organization.

“The name was the suggestion of someone in the PR department at Eastern Virginia Medical School, where I was teaching at the time,” Dr. Magee said.

“Unfortunately, I can’t remember her name. We’d love to find her, though.”