A young girl was walking along a beach upon which thousands of starfish had been washed up during a terrible storm. When she came to each starfish, she would pick it up, and throw it back into the ocean. People watched her with amusement. She had been doing this for some time when a man approached her and said, “Little girl, why are you doing this? Look at this beach! You can’t save all these starfish. You can’t begin to make a difference!”
The girl seemed crushed, suddenly deflated. But after a few moments, she bent down, picked up another starfish, and hurled it as far as she could into the ocean. Then she looked up at the man and replied, “Well, I made a difference to that one!”. The old man looked at the girl inquisitively and thought about what she had done and said. Inspired, he joined the little girl in throwing starfish back into the sea. Soon others joined and all the starfish were saved. – adapted from The Star Thrower by Loren C. Eiseley
Melinda McRostie is an Australian woman who has lived on the island of Lesvos for four decades, and she always refers to the story of the girl and the starfish to explain why she helps refugees with such self-sacrifice.
She was only three years old in 1968 when her mum took her and her sister on a holiday to Greece. They never left. Lesvos became their home.
In 1972 her mother remarried a Greek man named Giorgos and decided to move to Molyvos. The entire extended family followed.
Molyvos is a beautiful, small and very picturesque town of fewer than 2,000 residents waving at the Turkish coast of Çanakkale, and is one of the Lesvos villages that receive the largest numbers of refugee landings, as it allows the shortest crossing from Turkey to Europe.
The island received more than 100,000 refugees and migrants from Syria, Afghanistan, and other countries in 2015, when its population is reportedly under 85,000.
“My mother and I opened a restaurant in Molyvos called Melinda’s which turned out to be a huge success,” said McRostie.
“I met my husband Theo that year and he later joined the business. In 1994 Theo and I went out on our own and opened The Captain’s Table in the harbour of Molyvos.”
It took one phone call from the coastguard a couple of years ago, asking her to provide food for some migrants who had just been saved from drowning, for her to become a humanitarian.
Since then Melinda and her family have catered for thousands of souls, turning the rented land behind The Captain’s Table into a hotspot for refugees.
McRostie can fit up to 180 people on the land behind her restaurant, while her kitchen team prepares and offers up to three meals per person a day using food and supplies donated by tourists and locals.
Her team does not only lead the distribution of food and water, but they collect clothes, toys, and shoes for arriving refugees.
“When numbers started increasing rapidly in November 2014, the relief effort grew, and locals were joined by volunteers from all over the world,” she explained.
Help for Refugees in Molyvos, the Facebook page McRostie manages, serves as an information centre for advocates, reporters, and potential volunteers considering a visit to Lesvos.
In October last year, the volunteers in Molyvos founded the Starfish Foundation NGO to provide assistance to refugees, but also manage transit camp OXY, in which people are gathered before travelling onward to the island’s capital Mytilini, where registration is done.
Starfish Foundation has processed more than 200,000 people rescued by the coastguard.
“Donations from tourists and volunteers from around the world all helped to make this possible,” said McRostie.
“It’s obvious that it’s not something that’s going to stop, so the only obvious thing is to do something about it. Together we can make a difference. Join us.”
For more information and to show your support contact molyvosrefugees@gmail.com or visit www.asterias-starfish.org