Episode 8 - Teaching the "Starfish": Impact in Low-Income After-School Programs with Marisa Miller

New Episode: Teaching the Starfish – Low-Income After-School Programs with Marisa Miller

If you’ve ever wondered what real impact looks like inside low-income after-school programs, this episode is for you. In our latest Builders of a Better World Podcast conversation, “Teaching the Starfish: Low-Income After-School Programs,” I sit down with consultant and curriculum writer Marisa Miller to talk about intentional teaching, equity, and why she chooses to work in the hardest places.

Marisa has spent more than 20 years in public schools, museum programs, after-school organizations, and district-run ASES programs, designing learning experiences that are fun, rigorous, and deeply human. Her work focuses on helping staff create programs where kids don’t feel like they’re “still in school,” even as they’re learning and growing every single day.

We talk about why she left a well-resourced, “easy” classroom environment to work with communities that often don’t get their best teachers. Marisa shares how her background—from classroom teaching to founding charter schools to directing a marine science center—shapes the way she builds curriculum for literacy, wellness, STEM/STEAM, rural and agriculture programs, and even life skills like how to show up confidently to a special event. For her, every activity—whether it’s flying paper airplanes or running a pretend international café—is a vehicle for helping kids see themselves as capable, creative doers.

One of my favorite parts of this episode is our discussion about systems. We get honest about how hard it can be to work inside schools, nonprofits, and under-resourced communities, and how often “what you don’t know, you don’t know” is the real barrier for both families and staff. Marisa talks about the quiet, practical ways she designs around those gaps—from leveraging public libraries to building accessible, low-cost resources—so the adults on the front lines can succeed and kids can thrive.

We also explore the power of investing in adults, not just youth. Marisa shares what it’s like to “light up” staff members, and how every adult she supports goes on to touch hundreds of kids. When you help grownups rediscover their own sense of purpose, joy, and possibility, you multiply the impact of every curriculum, every program, and every hour after school.

The episode closes with a story you may have heard—the starfish on the beach—but Marisa’s lived experience gives it a different weight. Even when the scale of need feels overwhelming, she returns to this simple truth: “It made a difference to that one.” That’s the heartbeat behind her work and behind this conversation.

🎧 Listen to “Teaching the Starfish: Low-Income After-School Programs with Marisa Miller” on your favorite podcast platform, and share it with anyone working in youth development, education, or after-school spaces who needs a reminder that their work matters.

Would You Like to Learn More?

To learn more about Marisa’s consulting and curriculum work—or to explore bringing her into your program—visit her page at Afterschool Publishing.

Episode 8 - Teaching the "Starfish": Impact in Low-Income After-School ProgramsBuilders of a Better World

21:56

Transcript:

Welcome to Builders of a Better World Podcast, a space for depth, clarity, and honest conversation, where presence matters more than performance. Let’s begin.

Ashlieya: Welcome back to my living room, guys, or as I like to call it, my sanctuary. Builders of a Better World Podcast. I have a fantastic guest for us today. She's one of my favorite people on the planet for a variety of reasons.

We originally met in a professional capacity that involves kids. Something very near and dear to my heart, and I'm sure you will agree very much contributes to building a better world. So, without further ado, Marisa Miller, do you want to tell us who you are and what you do?

Marisa: Sure. Um, as you know, I am Marisa Miller. I am a consultant and curriculum writer. I specialize in working with low income after school programs, and my focus is to support staff to do incredible, fun, engaging, rigorous activities so that kids don't feel like they're in school, yet they're learning and growing every single day.

Ashlieya: That's amazing. That's what we all want to do for kids, right? I think we can all share in that in some capacity, but you do it in a very specific way, and I've perceived that you have a very intentional way of navigating what you do. Can you speak more to that—the idea of intention that you have?

Marisa: Sure. Um, so I've been in the youth development field for close on to 20 plus years now. Before that I was a classroom teacher. Um, I also was a director of curriculum for two charter schools that I founded.

And out of all that, then I also worked at a museum as a program director for a Marine Science Center. And all of these different experiences—and actually, I should probably also mention I worked in Hollywood before I got into education—but it's kind of a hodgepodge of stuff that's come together when you speak to intention.

For me, intentions come from a whole collection of experiences I've had. Kids I've worked with, stuff I've learned, the ideas that were… and they've come together now so that my viewpoint is, or my way of supporting kids and staff, is truly customized in a way that…

My best way to put it is actually… um, so I don't know, I—you and I met in this professional capacity, but I think, um, to a certain extent, your offerings with the dance studio and so on are quite obvious, right? You're teaching dance.

Ashlieya: Sure.

Marisa: Right? Like, it's hip hop, it's ballet, it's jazz, it's some kind of choreography, right? It's pretty straightforward, a lot of that content. Now, you can do it with greater quality, greater intention, greater staff training to support and gather all the kids so that every kid would be customized.

I know you stress social emotional learning aspects to your dance instruction, which I think is incredibly powerful, and also pretty unique to have such a strong focus on it.

My thing is that I offer—or can do, and do do—material program offerings across the entire spectrum. So, if programs are looking for something to support literacy, or if they're looking to support wellness, or if they're looking to support STEM, right, or STEAM, which is the new… for those of your… on your podcast, it's science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics, the idea that there's an integration of humanities with the science and technology.

So, different. But I've also worked with, like, rural programs, agriculture. Um, I've worked with emphasis because the community income…

So I guess what I'm saying is for me—and then there's just life skills, right? I mean, I've written curriculum around… when I was running a program for 10 years with our own seven schools, we would just find out, like, the kids don't know something, or there's gaps in certain basic life skills.

So, to be honest, I actually wrote a curriculum once around ironing, because we figured, well, there was an event coming up, and we have a lot of low income kids, and they were very excited to put on their best foot forward for this school event, and a lot of the kids were showing up in the shirts and the dresses and things, and… it was no… it wasn't a negative thing, but we observed that a lot of the clothing was rumpled.

And we had an iron, and we said something to the effect of, like, “Do you want us to iron that?” And the kids were, like, just didn't have a connection to that experience. So we didn't do it right there. We just took care of the ironing, and they had their event, right? But it made us realize… so, life experience.

So, I guess what I'm saying is, my intention and my… yours are more obvious as far as, like, what skills are. My special thing or intention you're talking about is what's behind everything I do, right, and provide, is as rich and deep of unlocking opportunity and new images for the kids to have of themselves, even if the surface activity is flying paper airplanes, or telling jokes in a stand up comedy, or pretending that they're running an international café and researching food and creating a menu, right?

Like, the activities are wide ranging, but the intention always is to empower the kids to have a deeper, richer sense of themselves, and more capable. Be able to do things and see themselves as doers.

Ashlieya: I love that. To help kids have a better image of themselves. That's amazing.

I—personal tangent for a moment, which I can do that because it's my podcast—I wish I'd had that growing up. I was raised with TV and movies as my example and books, as we've spoken about at great length. You know, my example for what else there could be was that. And that was it.

For that to be offered in these communities that are considered impoverished, they're lower income, and they don't have the same access to things that other people could have, that other children can have, and that's… I hadn't ever heard you describe what you do that way.

Marisa: Right. 

Ashlieya: I love that so much. That's really beautiful.

Okay. You already spoke about your experience. You just kind of organically presented that. So, well done, because that was gonna be my next question. But we already took care of that.

But beyond that, there's—I mean, we can talk about this or not. I can come up with another question.

Marisa: Sure.

Ashlieya: My experience with after school, explicitly as it pertains to lower income, was very hard. For a variety of reasons.

Marisa: Yes.

Ashlieya: There are… its own specific type of unique challenges that are just kind of embedded in what it is. Is there any part of you that feels called to speak to that and what that's like from your perspective?

Marisa: Um, well, the part I can share is, um, when I got my training in the late 90s to be a classroom teacher with a credential and all that, some of the books and material that we learned, there was one particular book by Jonathan Kozol called Savage Inequalities, which is an examination of the inequitable school system that we had then and we continue to have now.

And it wasn't that I wasn't unaware… I wasn’t unaware of that, because my own childhood, I went to several school districts, and I was exposed to school districts with more resources than others at times. And it was very interesting for me to note, see, the system be part of the problem as far as, like, it didn't actually… like, we were kids, we were the same.

I was the same whether I was in a well resourced district or I wasn't. As a child, so what I wanted, what I needed academically, supportive life skills, all that was the same. So I had a little bit of an awareness of that, but then, as a professional or a new professional, and then, as part of that training, you actually have to go and do your service training and so on.

And I went to a… one of my trainings was, I was already working inside a maximum security unit at Juvenile Hall. So I already had a daily work life tied to, shall we say, um, a challenging population, and I actually loved it already.

But I did then get sent and required to do an upper income math magnet school as part of my training. And that was fine. It was lovely. I learned a lot. I was still new.

But my real pivot point was about two years later, when I was teaching in Arizona, and I actually ended up teaching in a regular elementary school. And I was a 6th grade teacher, and I had a co-teacher, and I will be honest and say it was the… when you speak to the challenges, it was no question the easiest teaching year I had in my entire formal teaching profession.

And I, after one year, thought it was the wrong place for me to be. Because it was very clear to me—and I can still picture those students, and I had a great year, and, I mean, it was fun—what I knew within six months, and certainly by the end of that school year, that while I appreciate… I hope I brought something to them that was unique or special to my teaching, in the end, these children had well resourced lives, and the school district was in good shape.

And honestly, any decent teacher—and there are junk teachers, don't get me wrong—but if they had a decent teacher, they were going to get what they needed academically, socially, life skills exposed, like, they were going to succeed. They were gonna get to the next grade. They were gonna get to high school. They were gonna get to college if they wanted it, right? Like, the doors weren't closed on them inherently.

And then that's when I realized I could not do that. I needed to be with kids… I feel like a little bit, for a variety of reasons, which I won't get into here, 'cause I can get into ages, 'cause the systems and money and resources… there's a lot of reasons for it, but I feel like a lot of communities and children's situations don't get the best teachers for a lot of reasons.

And I felt like I, personally, could choose to be a really good teacher for kids that might not have gotten a really good teacher, to whatever degree I was a really great teacher. But I was… I needed that, the kind of teaching I needed to do.

And so, when you say, yeah, it's not easy, but for me personally, it's the only thing I can think to do, because… I mean, the other kids, they're gonna be fine.

Ashlieya: Yeah.

Marisa: And I don't, you know… and I don't know how much I impact, but I want to get up every day—then and now, I do it differently now—but get up every day knowing that I'm trying to make things better in a really intentional and direct way.

I'm sneaky about it these days, 'cause I don't actually tell the staff, in the field I'm in now… I don't tell the staff what I'm doing. I just craft it in a way that it's going to make it better. I don't educate them about it. I just have them do it.

But I do have a lot of what I offer has a lot of depth to it, and a lot of experience behind it, and a lot of specific industry teaching, pedagogical strengths to it. But your point about it… yeah, it is, but I actually think it's fun.

I know that sounds… but I think it's fun to solve those problems or find workarounds, 'cause I can't solve poverty. I can't solve junky life situations, like, that I can't stop. But I can wake up and realize, “Oh, these parents don't have access to X, but the public library has a free app, that I can create a flyer, and then teach the kids, and the kids can all have library cards for free, and then the parents can do it, and then it's in Spanish,” right?

Like, I can figure out things that, if somebody was just phoning it in or is not a stronger kind of teacher, I don't know that that would have happened. And so I'm more than willing, all these years, to put myself in that place to do that work.

Ashlieya: That's commendable, 'cause I find it quite hard and quite challenging, as we've spoken about at length.

I can relate very much to some of the most rewarding experiences of my entire life being moments with kids.

Marisa: Sure.

Ashlieya: I started teaching kids when I was 13. And yes, it's usually in the world of performing arts—like, that's our thing, right? We are the performing arts. It's a specific type of creativity, and I wish everyone was exposed to it in some way, shape, or form.

Marisa: I agree.

Ashlieya: That's how I came to do what I do, right? And there's something so special about a kid lighting up in a way that you just don't see them in any other environment, other than it clicking. They get an idea, they have the imagination, something for them ignites.

And that is something… it just was very moving to me, and I found really rewarding anytime I experienced it. But I struggled with the system.

Marisa: Yes. It's actually not… it's the system.

Ashlieya: It's the system.

Marisa: And it's both the system of the actual school system that you were dealing with, and it's also the system of the nonprofit organizations. It's also the system of what the families and the resources are operating in.

I mean, there's just… I think sometimes this culture particularly wants to make it all individual, you know, responsibility, but there are… there are challenges just in just what you do. I've heard you say, “What you don't know, you don't know.”

Ashlieya: Yeah. No, you don't know what you don’t know until you know.

Marisa: There… that. And it's amazing how much the parents, or the teachers, or, like, all the different people, actual people in these different layers of different kinds of systems that are interacting and not always—often, not always, but often—not in a synergistic way as much as individuals would like it to be. The way it operates doesn't lend itself to that.

And so I think that's one of the things that… that “what you don't know, you don't know,” and if you can be a part of that channel of getting them to know that, that it changes.

Ashlieya: Exactly.

Marisa: Yes. And so I appreciate your point about the kids lighting up. I have found also—and I think I found that with your staff—was that you put in a lot of time on your staff, getting those, so that then they can… it's not even generate, I guess, facilitate or create the space where those kids can have those moments, right?

And one of the things I'm really enjoying these days is having adults be lit up, because in a weird way, it's, like, more… it takes more consciousness and intent to get them to get there.

Ashlieya: Yes.

Marisa: But then when it does, you're leveraging every kid they ever touch now.

Ashlieya: Exactly. 

Marisa: And I like that part, too. 

Ashlieya: I'm so glad you mentioned that, 'cause there's so much emphasis on influencing kids and contributing to the betterment of youth. Let's not give up on the adults.

Marisa: Right. Right? I agree.

Ashlieya: Let’s not leave them in the cold. They contribute to all of this, and to your point, they have an effect on the kids as well.

Marisa: And they're starving for it.

Ashlieya: Oh, yeah.

Marisa: …I think.

Ashlieya: Well, they're in the field the same reason we were, initially. They want to make a difference in the lives of the kids.

Marisa: Yes.

Ashlieya: So you come in and help them do it better.

Marisa: I think it's also, too, bigger in the world, too. I mean, I think many more adults are much more hungry to grow.

Ashlieya: …in their own personal pursuit of happiness and joy.

Marisa: Yeah.

Ashlieya: And become builders of a better world, that's why we're here.

Marisa: That's right.

Ashlieya: I love that. That's excellent.

What do you have… future ambitions? Goals, plans, ideas?

Marisa: Yes, but I'm not going to… we're going to stop here.

Ashlieya: We're not… we're gonna stop here. Good. Any final thoughts then?

Marisa: Um, no.

Ashlieya: There's a quote. I'm gonna be… I've been all about the quotes this week.

Marisa: You have. I’ve noticed that.

Ashlieya: Writing my book, like, those… I'm like, “Lightning just struck my brain again with something that I love.” Leonardo da Vinci. But I'm gonna read it, because I don't want to bug it up. But I really, really love this.

Marisa: Okay, after you do that, I will tell you a quote that emphasizes what my viewpoint was.

Ashlieya: Oh.

Marisa: Go. 

Ashlieya: Okay, my quote first. Leonardo da Vinci: “To develop a complete mind, study the science of art, study the art of science. Learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.”

You said something earlier about all of the different curriculums and offerings that you provide, and how I'm specific to performing arts, but you can offer services as it pertains to any subject matter. That's when I thought of that. It's like, yes, study… yes, study the art of science and the science of art. That's what came to my brain as you were speaking.

Your quote now?

Marisa: Well, my point is that I think all of us, and including the work you're doing here, but all of us sometimes worry about… do we worry about… we wonder if our impact matters, right? And is it worth the skill, and how much, if I can only do X or Y amount.

And your question to me about working with poverty groups and where I started with some of this and so on, and the intentions I have with it, kind of coalesced to this, and it's a very, in some ways, a very hackneyed story that people repeat a lot.

But I think if you really stop and think about it with kind of new eyes, I think it has a different depth to it, and it's very true for my life, I have to say, which is that story about the person who comes along on the beach, and there's all these stranded sea stars, and the tide's out, and they're dying, and it's not going to come back in time, and they're dying.

And this other person comes along, watching this one person just tediously, bit by bit, throwing individual sea stars back into the water. And the scale, apparently, of how many are still stranded makes the second person ask the first person, “Why are you doing this? It's not going to make a difference. There's so many. It's gonna crash the population.”

And the first person looks down and has a sea star in their hand, throws it and says, “Well, it made a difference to that one.”

Ashlieya: Yeah.

Marisa: And that's where I stand.

Ashlieya: I love that. That's excellent. Well done. That was a good way to wrap that up.

Okay, do you have any call to actions for yourself or for viewers? No? Okay. Well, thank you so much. That was super excellent. I appreciate you being here and sharing your insight. I can personally attest to the difference that you make because I've seen it, and I've also been the recipient of it. You are an excellent consultant, and I really value what you do. So…

Marisa: Thank you.

Ashlieya: Thank you so much for watching. Um, I don't have a call to action for you today. Like and subscribe. If you're interested in knowing more about Marisa, we have her details linked/attached below. If you're interested in working with her, she does offer consultant services, and she is awesome.

Thank you so much for watching, and see you next time.

Thank you for joining us here at the Builders of a Better World podcast. Please share, subscribe, comment, and be sure to pass this episode along for anyone who may need it. See you next time.

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Paraphrased transcript for readability:

Ashlieya: Welcome back to my living room, or as I like to call it, my sanctuary—Builders of a Better World Podcast. I have a fantastic guest for us today. She's one of my favorite people on the planet for a variety of reasons.

We originally met in a professional capacity that involves kids—something very near and dear to my heart and something that absolutely contributes to building a better world. So, without further adieu, Marisa Miller, do you want to tell us who you are and what you do?

Marisa: Sure. As you know, I’m Marisa Miller. I’m a consultant and curriculum writer. I specialize in working with low income after school programs, and my focus is to support staff to run incredible, fun, engaging, rigorous activities so that kids don’t feel like they’re in school—even though they’re learning and growing every single day.

Ashlieya: That’s amazing. That’s what we all want to do for kids, right? I think we can all share in that, but you do it in a very specific way. I’ve noticed you have a very intentional way of navigating what you do. Can you speak more to that intention?

Marisa: I’ve been in the youth development field for over 20 years. Before that, I was a classroom teacher. I was also director of curriculum for two charter schools I founded. I later worked as a program director for a marine science center at a museum, and before education I even worked in Hollywood.

All of those experiences, and all the kids and staff I’ve worked with, have shaped my intentions. My way of supporting kids and staff now is very customized.

When you look at your work with the dance studio, your offerings are clear: you’re teaching dance—hip hop, ballet, jazz, choreography. The content is straightforward, and then you build in greater quality, intention, and staff training, plus a strong social emotional focus, which is powerful and pretty unique.

What I do is similar in spirit but broader in content. I design and support program offerings across the spectrum: literacy, wellness, STEM and STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and math), rural and agriculture-based programs, and general life skills.

For example, when I was running a program across seven schools, we’d notice gaps in everyday skills. Once, before a big school event, many of our low income students came in clothes they were proud of, but the clothing was very rumpled. We realized many of them hadn’t had anyone show them how to iron or even that it was an option. We handled the ironing for the event, but it led us to create a life-skills curriculum around something as simple as ironing.

So my intention, beneath everything, is to unlock opportunity and expand the images kids have of themselves, no matter how simple the surface activity looks. It might be flying paper airplanes, doing stand-up comedy, or pretending to run an international café and creating a menu. The activities vary, but the goal is always to help kids develop a deeper, richer sense of themselves as capable people who can do things and see themselves as doers.

Ashlieya: I love that—helping kids have a better image of themselves.

Personal tangent for a moment, which I can do because it’s my podcast: I wish I’d had that growing up. I was raised with TV, movies, and books as my only examples of what else could be, and that was it.

For kids in communities that are considered impoverished or lower income, who don’t have access to what other children might have, to be offered that kind of experience is huge. I’ve never heard you describe what you do in that way, and I love it. It’s really beautiful.

You already spoke about your background, which was going to be my next question, so we’ve covered that. I’d also like to touch on the challenges.

My experience in after school programs, especially in lower income contexts, was very hard for a variety of reasons. There are unique challenges embedded in the structure itself. Is there a part of you that feels called to speak to what that’s like from your perspective?

Marisa: When I trained as a classroom teacher in the late 90s, one of the central texts we read was Jonathan Kozol’s Savage Inequalities, which looks at how inequitable the school system was then—and still is now.

I had already attended several school districts as a child, some well resourced and some not, so I knew the difference. I was the same kid in each district; my needs academically and for life skills were the same. But the resources around me varied dramatically, and that stuck with me.

As a new professional, I worked daily in a maximum security unit at Juvenile Hall with a very challenging population that I actually loved working with. As part of my teacher training, I was then required to do a placement at an upper income math magnet school. It was fine—I learned a lot—but the pivotal moment came a couple of years later when I taught 6th grade at a regular elementary school in Arizona.

It ended up being the easiest teaching year of my formal classroom career. The kids were great, the district was well resourced, and any decent teacher could have given them what they needed to succeed academically and socially. They were going to get to the next grade, high school, and college if they wanted it. The system wasn’t inherently closing doors on them.

By the end of that year, I realized it wasn’t where I wanted to be. I felt that many communities and children, for lots of systemic reasons, don’t get their best teachers. I decided I wanted to be a really good teacher specifically for kids who might not otherwise get one. That’s the kind of teaching I needed to do.

So, when you say it’s not easy—you’re right. But for me, it’s the only thing that makes sense. The kids in better-resourced places will mostly be fine. I don’t know how big my impact is, but I want to wake up every day knowing I’m trying to make things better in a direct, intentional way.

These days I do it differently. I’m a bit “sneaky” in that I don’t always explain my full strategy to staff; I just design things to make their work better. What I offer has a lot of depth and pedagogical strength behind it, even if I don’t spell all of that out.

And yes, the system is hard—poverty, underfunded schools, family constraints. I can’t solve all of that. But I can notice, for example, that parents don’t have access to certain resources, then find a workaround: maybe the public library has a free app and I can create a flyer, help kids get free library cards, make sure the information is available in Spanish, and so on.

Those are the kinds of solutions that might not happen if someone is just phoning it in. I’m willing to put myself in that space and do that work.

Ashlieya: That’s so commendable, because I find it quite hard and challenging, as we’ve talked about at length.

Some of the most rewarding experiences of my life have been working with kids. I started teaching when I was 13, usually in performing arts—that’s our world, right? I wish everyone was exposed to that kind of creativity in some way, because that’s how I came to do what I do.

There’s something so special about seeing a kid light up in a way you don’t see in any other environment—the moment something “clicks,” when they get an idea, their imagination turns on, and something ignites in them. It’s deeply moving and incredibly rewarding.

But I struggled with the system.

Marisa: Yes. It’s not just “a system”—it’s multiple systems.

There’s the school system you were working within, there are nonprofit systems, and then there are the systems families are navigating around resources. Our culture often frames everything as individual responsibility, but there are structural challenges built into how all these pieces fit—or don’t fit—together.

You’ve said, “What you don’t know, you don’t know,” and it’s amazing how that applies across parents, teachers, and all the adults interacting in these systems. The structures don’t always support synergy, even when individuals want it.

So part of the work is becoming a channel for “what you don’t know, you don’t know”—helping people become aware of options and resources they didn’t know existed, so things can change.

And I completely resonate with what you said about kids lighting up. I saw that with your staff, too—you put a lot of time into them so they can create those transformative moments for kids.

These days, I’m really enjoying seeing adults “light up.” It takes more conscious effort to get adults there, but once it happens, every child they interact with benefits. That leverage is huge.

Ashlieya: Exactly. I’m so glad you mentioned that, because there’s so much emphasis on influencing kids and contributing to the betterment of youth. But we can’t give up on the adults.

They’re the ones holding space for the kids. They contribute to everything we’re talking about, and they have a massive effect on the kids.

Marisa: And they’re starving for it.

Ashlieya: Oh, yeah.

Marisa: A lot of them got into this field for the same reason we did—they want to make a difference in kids’ lives. When you help them do that better, it’s powerful. And beyond that, many adults are hungry to grow in their own pursuit of happiness and joy.

Ashlieya: Yes. That’s why we’re here.

Marisa: That’s right.

Ashlieya: I love that. That’s excellent.

Do you have any future ambitions—goals, plans, ideas—you want to share?

Marisa: Yes, but I’m not going to go into them here.

Ashlieya: Fair enough. Any final thoughts then?

Marisa: Not really.

Ashlieya: I’ve been all about quotes this week. I had another one jump into my mind from Leonardo da Vinci, and I want to read it so I don’t mess it up:

“To develop a complete mind, study the science of art, study the art of science. Learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.”

You said earlier that while I’m specific to performing arts, you can support programs in any subject area with your curriculum and offerings. That reminded me of this quote—studying the art of science and the science of art. It’s all connected.

Your quote now?

Marisa: I think all of us—your work included—sometimes wonder whether our impact matters, especially if we feel we can “only” do so much. Your question about working with communities in poverty and my intentions around that made me think of a story that gets told a lot, but it still has depth for me.

It’s the story of a person walking along a beach covered in stranded sea stars. The tide is out, they’re drying in the sun, and there are far too many to save. Another person watches as the first one throws sea stars back into the ocean, one at a time.

The second person says, “Why are you doing this? It’s not going to make a difference. There are too many.”

The first person picks up another sea star, throws it into the water, and says, “It made a difference to that one.”

That’s where I stand. That’s how I see my work.

Ashlieya: I love that. That’s excellent. A perfect way to wrap that up.

Do you have any calls to action for yourself or for viewers?

Marisa: No.

Ashlieya: Well, thank you so much. That was excellent. I appreciate you being here and sharing your insight. I can personally attest to the difference you make because I’ve seen it, and I’ve also been the recipient of it. You are an excellent consultant, and I really value what you do.

Marisa: Thank you.

Ashlieya: Thank you so much for watching. I don’t have a specific call to action for you today—like and subscribe. If you’re interested in knowing more about Marisa, we have her details linked below. If you’re interested in working with her, she offers consulting services and she is awesome.

Thank you so much for watching, and see you next time.

Thank you for joining us here at the Builders of a Better World podcast. Please share, subscribe, comment, and be sure to pass this episode along for anyone who may need it. See you next time.