How It Began

The story of Operation Starfish® began in 1998 with a late evening stroll by a man and his dog. Father Dick Martin, pastor of the Church of the Nativity in Burke, Virginia, and his pooch, "Pete," were walking one night before Lent. Fr. Martin was wrestling with ideas for programs that would allow families to contribute a little and turn it into a lot.

Fr. Martin couldn't believe the numbers when he calculated them: 2,500 families saving just 50 cents a day for the 40 days of Lent could donate $50,000 to make a difference in the lives of the poor.

Starfish boxes like this one have funded entire villages, like Nativity Village in Haiti.

This simple program of sacrifice was far more successful than Fr. Martin predicted. The parish family at the Church of the Nativity raised nearly $67,000. They decided to use the funds to build 27 simple houses in Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, working through Food For The Poor, Inc. The name, Operation Starfish®, came in the second year based on the writing of Loren Eiseley.

As a young boy walked the beach at dawn, he noticed an old man ahead of him picking up starfish and tossing them into the sea. Catching up with the man, the boy asked why he was doing this. The old man explained to the boy that the stranded starfish would die if left in the morning sun.

"But the beach goes on for miles and there are millions of starfish," exclaimed the boy. "How can your effort make any difference?"

The old man looked at the starfish in his hand and then threw it safely into the waves. He turned to the boy and said, "It made a difference to that one."

Click here to download a two-page flyer on how to conduct an Operation Starfish® campaign at your organization.