An old story is told of a man walking along a beach at low tide, where the retreating water had left thousands of starfish stranded on the sand, drying in the sun.
Ahead of him, he noticed a small boy bending down again and again — picking up a starfish, and throwing it back into the sea.
“Why bother?” the man called out as he caught up. “There are thousands of them. You can’t possibly save them all. What difference can you really make?”
The small boy bent down, picked up another starfish, and threw it as far as he could into the waves.
“Well it made a difference to that one,” he said.
Why This Story Matters to Us
Sierra Leone’s needs can feel overwhelming — food insecurity, poverty, clean water and sanitation, poor access to health care and treatments, education, dignity in old age, and more. We can’t fix all of it, everywhere, at once. But we can dig one well. Repair one hernia. Fund one cataract operation. Treat a malnourished child. Build a family toilet. Remind people that they matter.
That’s the spirit behind everything on this website: not the promise of solving poverty in Sierra Leone, but the certainty that we can make a real difference — to this family, this village, this person — one at a time, and then the next, and the one after that.
If you’d like to help us throw the next starfish, donate here.