Project Starfish

Project Starfish offers intensive, personalized support to individuals and families to help them identify issues and set priorities.

The Starfish Coordinator helps families with budgeting, makes referrals on low-cost car repair, provides housing and job search assistance, and helps find household items.

Project Starfish is an opportunity to sit down with a caring and knowledgeable professional who will listen, ask questions, offer suggestions, provide information and referral, and help set priorities.

Support is provided for making changes or reaching a goal; often a difficult process. Project Starfish empowers individuals to bring about desired changes, and provides information that helps individuals along that path of change. The Coordinator works closely with school staff, Hennepin County, and other nonprofit agencies; clients are referred to appropriate agencies or organizations as needed.

Project Starfish clients may be homeless at the time of service. Families new to the area have been helped with household goods, assistance with employment issues, and information on available services. Many clients stop in to talk with a Starfish Coordinator on a regular basis, knowing they are always welcome.

Click to e-mail our Starfish Coordinator or call (952) 988-5357.

Support the Starfish Program

Why “Project Starfish”?
The name “Project Starfish” was inspired by The Star Thrower by Loren Eiseley. It illustrates the impact a helping hand can have on the life of an individual.

The Story of the Starfish Thrower
One morning a young man was walking on the beach when he saw an elderly man. As the young man got closer he saw that the elderly man was picking something up and gently putting it in the ocean. The young man asked, “What are you doing?”

The older man paused, looked up and answered, “Throwing starfish back into the ocean. The sun is up and the tide is going out. If I don’t throw them in, they will die.”

The young man replied, “But don’t you realize there are miles and miles of beach, and hundreds of starfish. You can’t possibly make a difference!”

The older man listened politely. He bent down, picked up another starfish, looked at the starfish as he prepared to throw it into the ocean, past the breaking waves, and said, “I will make a difference to this one!”