Frequently Asked Questions

How can I possibly help all these children?

Whether you are asking this question of yourself or asking Gabrielle's Vision organization, our philosophy can be explained several ways:

A little girl was walking along the shore and noticed thousands of starfish that had washed up and were dying. She started quickly picking up the starfish one at a time and gently tossing them back into the sea. An old man came along and asked what she was doing. She replied, "The starfish die on the beach! I am saving them! Will you help?" The old man very gently said, "Sweetie, there are thousands of these starfish along the beach. We can't possibly help them all. The tide comes and goes. Storms come and go. Next week these same ones could wash up again. I'm sure we both have better things to do. What does it matter?" The girl looked sympathetically at the starfish in her hand. Her eyes watered and she defiantly tossed the starfish back into the sea. "It mattered to that one!," she said. -- Unknown origin, modified for Gabrielle's Vision

The central struggle of parenthood is to let our hopes for our children outweigh our fears. -- Ellen Goodman (1941 - )

No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted. -- Aesop (620 BC - 560 BC), The Lion and the Mouse

You must give some time to your fellow men. Even if it's a little thing, do something for others - something for which you get no pay but the privilege of doing it. -- Albert Schweitzer (1875 - 1965)

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step -- Lao-tzu (604 BC - 531 BC), The Way of Lao-tzu