Trash extended as far as the eyes could see. Hundreds of workers, many of them children, half-naked and bare foot, waded through the filth. They were accompanied by rats and snakes as they slaved beneath a scorching sun that brought temperatures topping 100 degrees. Flies enveloped the dump, the children wiping them off their arms as though they were pulling up the sleeves of a dress shirt. The end goal of the endeavor was to scavenge out tiny treasures: a minuscule piece of plastic, a scrap of steel, a fragment of glass, anything they could gather and sell at the end of the day. A young girl with sad eyes scooped through some slop, looking for particles of food that could be sold and used as cattle feed.

Bill Smith was so moved by seeing children working a garbage dump for articles they could sell that he decided to act, and his actions helped change lives. Bill Smith

This was the scene that Bill Smith and his wife Lauren witnessed during one of their trips to Cambodia back in the summer of 2002. They had been taken to Stung Mean Chey dump, truly a name apropos of such a display, by their driver, Chat Kong, who suggested that they go see "the children." This was not what Smith and his wife had expected when they took his advice.

"I kind of knew that it existed. I vaguely remember seeing a picture like that in National Geographic," said Smith. "But it doesn't really hit home until you're standing there."

Smith is the team photographer for the Chicago Bears, Blackhawks and Bulls. He's made a living shooting the brilliance of Devin Hester, Jonathan Toews and Michael Jordan competing against the most famous athletes in the world on the biggest stage.

He's not one to be intimidated by a moment, until that one life-changing day. Smith and his wife were horrified by what they'd seen at the dump in the tiny village just outside Phnom Penh. They were practically in tears.

They had been traveling to different parts of Southeast Asia for more than a decade at the urging of friend Gary Fencik, the former Chicago Bears safety. In his downtime, Smith would take pictures for pleasure in these exotic locales. He'd been to Vietnam, India and numerous other countries, but he was always drawn to Cambodia.

Normally chatty about what they had seen during their daily exploits, the Smiths instead sat in silence on their drive back to the hotel. They knew they had to do something and decided to go back to the dump the next day and pick out a child to support. They realized they were being naïve. They knew helping one child would hardly make a dent in the dire scenes they had witnessed, but they didn't feel right sitting idly by while such unspeakable sadness was unfolding.

The following day, Kong drove them back to the dump, where Lauren saw a girl in a red hat. She had remembered seeing the girl working hard the day before, her sad eyes branded in Lauren's memory. Kong brought the terrified girl over and helped translate between the Smiths and the young girl. After learning their intentions, the shy girl, whose name they learned was Sreyna, eventually agreed to take them to her home. She led them through a shanty town, and they came upon a tiny shack constructed from corrugated tin and had no running water or electricity. Sreyna's mother was not at home, she was out working as a bricklayer, but the Smiths were greeted by Sreyna's older sister, Salim, and their friend, Nak, who had been living with them since her parents had passed away.