Back a few years ago while working for a Corporation, I came up with what I called the Star Fish Award. I used it at meetings to show appreciation of an employee, a customer or even a supplier that constantly tried making a difference in a positive way to people. Giving out the Star Fish Award was a highlight of my career.
Here’s the story behind the Star Fish Award based on the story by Loren Eisley…
The older man awoke early, as he often did, just before sunrise to walk by the ocean’s edge and greet the new day. As he moved through the misty dawn, he focused on a faint, far away motion. He saw a youth, bending and reaching and flailing arms, dancing on the beach, no doubt in celebration of the perfect day soon to begin.
As he approached, he sadly realized that the youth was not dancing to the day, but rather bending to sift through the debris left by the night’s tide, stopping now and then to pick up a starfish and then standing, to heave it back into the sea. I asked the youth the purpose of the effort. “The tide has washed the starfish onto the beach and they cannot return to the sea by themselves,” the youth replied. “When the sun rises, they will die, unless I throw them back to the sea.”
As the youth explained, the man surveyed the vast expanse of beach, stretching in both directions beyond his sight. Starfish littered the shore in numbers beyond calculation. The hopelessness of the youth’s plan became clear to him and the man countered, “But there are more starfish on this beach than you can ever save before the sun is up. Surely you cannot expect to make a difference.”
The youth paused briefly to consider the mans words, bent to pick up a starfish and threw it as far as possible. Turning to the wise old man… he simply said, “I made a difference to that one.”
The man left the boy and went home, deep in thought of what the boy had said. I returned to the beach and spent the rest of the day helping the boy throw starfish in to the sea.
I don’t have an extra $75. to donate to this cause but I do want to make a difference. What I’m asking for is sponsors. Sponsors that can make a difference to 5 kids in MN that have SMA-1 which is a genetic disease that attacks the voluntary nervous system, leaving the infant paralyzed from the nose down.
If I can raise $75. or more sponsor dollars, I’ll be out there in my golf shorts, (like I own any lime green shorts) shirt and IDA hat. All donations will go directly to the Brandon Rolen Foundation…100%.
Help me throw back some star fish, make a difference…and turn a good guy into a silly golfer.
also is that auction somthing that can go on all of the time or is it over?
when we send it in do we suggest it is for someone to golf? 
They’ve traded in there tractors for golf carts. 
