This is the story shared at Julia's Acheivement Days Recognition
As a man walked a desolate beach one cold, gray morning he began to see another figure far in the distance. Slowly the two approached each other, and he could make out a local native girl (it was a man in the original story), who kept leaning down, picking something up and throwing it out into the water. Time and again she hurled things into the ocean. As the distance between them continued to narrow, the man could see that the girl was picking up starfish that had been washed upon the beach and one at a time, was throwing them back into the water. Puzzled, he approached the girl and asked what she was doing.
"I'm throwing these starfish back into the ocean. You see, it's low tide right now and all of these starfish have been washed up onto the shore. If I don't throw them back into the sea, they'll die up here from lack of oxygen."
"But there must be thousands of starfish on this beach," the man replied. "You can't possibly get to all of them. There are just too many. And this same thing is probably happening on hundreds of beaches all up and down this coast. Can't you see that you can't possibly make a difference?"
The young girl smiled, bent down and picked up another starfish, and as she threw it back into the sea she replied, "Made a difference to that one!"
The point to the story was every kind deed, word, and sometimes thought, do matter. Even if it is just to yourself. We had starfish cookies for desert, and had beach themed table settings. Very fun.
As a man walked a desolate beach one cold, gray morning he began to see another figure far in the distance. Slowly the two approached each other, and he could make out a local native girl (it was a man in the original story), who kept leaning down, picking something up and throwing it out into the water. Time and again she hurled things into the ocean. As the distance between them continued to narrow, the man could see that the girl was picking up starfish that had been washed upon the beach and one at a time, was throwing them back into the water. Puzzled, he approached the girl and asked what she was doing.
"I'm throwing these starfish back into the ocean. You see, it's low tide right now and all of these starfish have been washed up onto the shore. If I don't throw them back into the sea, they'll die up here from lack of oxygen."
"But there must be thousands of starfish on this beach," the man replied. "You can't possibly get to all of them. There are just too many. And this same thing is probably happening on hundreds of beaches all up and down this coast. Can't you see that you can't possibly make a difference?"
The young girl smiled, bent down and picked up another starfish, and as she threw it back into the sea she replied, "Made a difference to that one!"
The point to the story was every kind deed, word, and sometimes thought, do matter. Even if it is just to yourself. We had starfish cookies for desert, and had beach themed table settings. Very fun.
2 comments:
I like that story, so many little things can make a huge difference.
dawn
I like that story, too. I heard a similar story this week at the early childhood conference. A true story about a sea turtle. The story was turned into a book called "Esperanza" by Pam Schiller. My library doesn't have it. Maybe yours does!
flessi
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