One of my favourite parables is the story about the Starfish. I am often reminded about it when I think about the myriad of ways people can make a difference in the world and the importance of volunteerism.
For those that are not familiar with this beautiful story, it tells of a child walking along a beach after a terrible storm which washed up thousands of starfish on the beach. The child is throwing starfish back into the water, when an older man noticed him and asked what he was doing. The young child looked up and said ‘Throwing starfish into the ocean. The tide has washed them up onto the beach and they can’t return to the sea by themselves. They will die, unless I throw them back into the water”. The older man replied, ‘But there must be tens of thousands of starfish on this beach. I’m afraid you won’t be able to make much of a difference.” The child bent down, and picked up another starfish and threw it as far as they could into the ocean. Then turned around, smiled, and said, ‘It made a difference to that one!”
I love this story because it reminds me that just because an action is small, it doesn’t mean it isn’t worthwhile or critically important. With everything happening in the world now, with the world’s problems feeling insurmountable we often feel powerless and overwhelmed, especially if people around us insist there is no point in helping or trying to change things because it doesn’t make a difference. But we all know it does.
This week as we celebrate National Volunteer Week, we acknowledge the incredible contribution of all our volunteers and everything they do, no matter how big or what they may feel is insignificant. Just like in the starfish story, our volunteers make a difference even if that difference affects one person. Not being able to fix everything doesn’t mean there isn’t important value in changing and helping what you can do moment, by moment, person by person, situation by situation.
To all our Betel volunteers, thank you for your ongoing dedication, compassion, creativity and support. As Margret Mead said… ‘it takes a whole village to raise a child….” In our world at Betel, it takes all of our volunteers to make the Bernard Betel Centre a warm, safe, engaging and vital organization. To our volunteers celebrating important milestones, we thank you and wish you a warm mazel-tov!
Respectfully,
Gail Gould
Executive Director
