Face to face

A Madison business is using surgical skill to allow its customers to put their best faces forward.

It's also doing the same thing to help less fortunate battered women gain self-esteem and face the world.

Practicing in the Capital Region for more than 10 years, the Parfitt Facial Cosmetic Surgery Center offers medical procedures that restore or enhance their patients' features.

The successful company provides facelifts, skin enhancements, chin augmentations and a host of other treatments .

Though these operations are usually elective, and often paid for out-of-pocket, they are not merely a privileged indulgence of the wealthy. The services available at the Parfitt Center actually go a long way toward helping the less fortunate and heal the wounds of our society.

The center's founder, Dr. Richard Parfitt, donates his skills as a surgeon to women who have suffered a disfiguring facial injury as the result of domestic violence. Working through the American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Parfitt is one of many doctors around the country who help women with limited financial resources work through their traumatic experience.

First step to healing

The program is called Face to Face. Restoring the physical appearance of battered women is often the first step toward healing a shattered life that will remain fragile long after the violence ends.

"We give them cosmetic surgery to make them feel better about themselves," Richard Parfitt said. "They don't necessarily have to have deformities or scars. The way the academy sees it, and the way I see it, if we can just help them feel better about themselves by giving them something that strengthens their self-esteem, we've contributed."

Locally, Parfitt connects with his pro-bono patients through the Wisconsin Coalition Against Domestic Violence. Women in need are referred to him when their circumstances warrant a surgical procedure.

Parfitt said he's corrected a number of broken noses caused by a punch from an irate spouse or an abusive boyfriend. Because these women's injuries are the result of circumstances beyond their control, Parfitt said he's more than willing to donate his services.

"We don't realize how tough it is for other people," he said. "It just feels good to help."

As a private practitioner in the lucrative business of cosmetic surgery, Parfitt said he could afford to be generous. Procedures that cost thousands of dollars make for a profitable enterprise. Because most of the operations he performs are elective, he seldom has to deal with insurance companies and most of his customers have the means to pay his fees.

With so many women coming through his door for treatments to improve their physical appearance, Parfitt said the charitable contribution of his time and the resources of his center to improve the lives of an underprivileged few only makes sense.

Giving back to the community

"We felt we should give back to the community that supports us," Parfitt said. "Surely, some men come here. But at least 80 percent of our customers are women."

That's why the Parfitt Center has also pledged its financial support to women and girls throughout Dane County. Over the next five years the Center will donate $60,000 to A Fund For Women. The local nonprofit provides grants to programs that work to correct gender-biased social inequities.

Addressing issues of concern to women such as child-care, economic self-sufficiency, wage discrimination and homelessness, A Fund for Women welcomes the opportunity to work with the Parfitt Center.

Director of Development Jan Gietzel said the two organizations share many of the same aspirations.

"So many of their goals fit in with our goals too," she said. "We're certainly about raising self-esteem for women and girls. And we're certainly about ending domestic violence. Those things are goals that connect us."

Gietzel admits there was a bit of controversy at first. She said it was difficult to get past the general perception of plastic surgery as a frivolous luxury meant only for rich women.

"But in fact, what they do helps build confidence in women. And they're doing a lot of corrective things that have to do with people's health," Gietzel said. "And then they're doing things like taking off the tattoos and helping women who are domestically abused."

Richard Parfitt's wife and the general manager of the Parfitt Center, Peggy Parfitt, sits on the board of A Fund For Women. She said the company's $60,000 contribution would help support a variety of different women's initiatives in the coming months.

"This year in particular, the grant cycle focused on areas such as access to health care and eliminating the barriers that women and girls in the Hmong and Hispanic communities have as far as second languages," Peggy Parfitt said.

"And that spirals into them not being able to apply for a job or not having the connections necessary to get to health care," she said.

$100,000 in grants awarded

A Fund For Women has awarded grants totaling $100,000; the largest cumulative offering since the organization began in 1993.

Today AFFW is endowed to the tune of $1.3 million through the Madison Community Foundation. Grants bestowed in 2007 include:

• Domestic Abuse Intervention Services for their Drop in Support Group & Direct Aid for victims of domestic abuse - $17,000
• East Madison Community Center's program Alternatives to Violence for Girls - $12,000
• Freedom Inc. program, Family Strengthening Project - $15,000
• Girls Scouts of Blackhawk Council, program Speak Out, Sister - $3,000
• Planned Parenthood of WI program, Empowering Girls to Make Healthy Choices - $17,000
• Goodman Atwood Community Center, Girl Neighborhood Power - Big Sister Little Sister mentoring project - $14,000
• Simpson Street Free Press, Developing Young Professional Women and Journalists of Color - $6,500
• YWCA, Girl Neighborhood Power/Girls Inc. - $15,000

It's through the generous contributions of organizations like the Parfitt Center that make grants like these possible. The company has successfully taken its core competencies and discovered ways to make both financial and service donations that benefit members of the community in need.

Tattoo removal

A new program the Parfitt Center has begun is the removal of tattoos from former gang members who hope to become productive members of society.

"We have a state of the art tattoo removal laser. And looking philanthropically we believe this is a good opportunity to look at a population that has a disfigurement that they can't afford to get rid of," Richard Parfitt said. "That's where we step in and help them out."

Peggy Parfitt said the program is slow to start because gang members are often pressured by their associates to stay in.

"My specific requirement for the program was if they were currently involved in gang activity they had to commit to get out and stay out," Peggy Parfitt said.

But early attempts to stem gang activity in the program's participants were thwarted. Active gang members were able to identify their reformed peers while working to remove graffiti around a Madison neighborhood.

"The other gang members knew who they were and that they were trying to get out," Peggy Parfitt said. "So for now I'm leaving that part of it up to the Madison Police Department. There's really only so much we can do."

James Edward Mills is a Madison freelance writer.