Help after Harvey done on principal
Inspired school official gets N.H. town involved in aid effort
The tale of the starfish has been shared with schoolkids for generations, telling them how they can make a difference.
Do you remember it? A little boy walking along a stretch of beach comes upon thou- sands of starfish that are dying, having been washed ashore. As he returned one to the water, a passerby said, “Son, can’t you see how many there are? What you’re doing can’t possibly make a difference.”
“It made a difference to this one,” the boy replied.
Gary Dempsey, the 49-year-old principal of Pelham, N.H., High School, was a lot like that little boy as he sat at home aghast over the devastation Hurricane Harvey had wreaked upon Houston.
Then he had a preposterous thought.
“I tell our kids all the time, ‘Be a nice neighbor!’ It’s easy to say, but here was a chance to show it.”
Heartbreaking disasters have a way of awakening a desire to help others. Old-timers remember how Greater Boston morphed into Mayberry R.F.D. after the Blizzard of ’78.
So Dempsey decided to dream big.
“I called Campers Inn over in Merrimack, telling them our school wanted to send a trailer packed with supplies to Houston. The guy said, ‘I’ll have to check with corporate,’ then called me back an hour later to say, ‘We’re in!’
“They provided a 22-foot trailer that has a bathroom, a bedroom, two couches and a kitchen.
“Then I called Enterprise, telling them I needed a truck to haul it. When I told them what I wanted it for, they gave me a beautiful pickup and charged us just $250.” The plan is to leave this Friday. “My buddy, Lee Lowell, took time from his job at the county nursing home to drive there with me, but we have to come right back, so JetBlue chipped in with two tickets to fly us home.”
What began as a school project has blossomed into a community endeavor as this sleepy little New Hampshire hamlet prepares to send its offering of love to the fourth-biggest town in America.
“It’s not just the high school,” Dempsey said. “Kids from all our schools are involved. It’s happening all over town. Someone donated a generator. Someone left a case of bottled water outside my home. I have a friend who works for Reebok; he’s bringing a bunch of kidsized sneakers.
“We’ve seen little kids down there in shelters with nothing to do. So we’re packing games and coloring books, and backpacks loaded with school supplies. We’re including lots of readyto-eat food that doesn’t even require a can opener.”
Pelham is planning to give Dempsey and Lowell a send-off party.
“We’ll probably ask the Salvation Army to decide which family gets this,” Dempsey said. “I know it won’t come close to solving the problems down there, but if we can help just one family we’ll have made a difference.”
Indeed, one starfish will thrive again.