Commentary: One tiny grain of sand can start a movement

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By Daryn Kagan, Contributing Columnist 2:08 PM Saturday, September 3, 2011

I’ve never met Sara Bayles in person. Yet, we share something special. We agree on what is one of our favorite places on earth, the beach along the Santa Monica Pier in Southern California.

I came to it as a girl. On our weekly family trips to a beach further up the coast, my dad and I would walk down to the pier, touch a pylon three times and walk back to the area where the rest of family and friends were camped out. The walk there and back was about a mile and a half. I felt as proud as if I had run a marathon. And the fact that I took that walk week after week with just my dad, well, to a young girl that made that place beyond special.

Sara Bayles came to that same stretch of beach as an adult. She’s a California transplant who soon knew where she wanted to spend as much time as possible — at the beach — in between being wife, ceramics teacher and makeup artist.

She loved the sand, the salt air, the waves crashing on the shore.

There was just one thing.

The trash.

With each visit Sara grew more disgusted. Clearly other visitors were not treating this favorite place on Earth with the same reverence. Water bottles, plastic bags, straws, cigarette butts. It was all stuff that was washing up on shore or people were leaving behind. Finally, she had enough.

“I came home and told my husband I have to do something,” Sara recently shared with me.

But really, what could one woman accomplish on a beach where millions of people visit each year? Why bother? It would be like one grain of sand trying to change the entire beach.

Like a tiny grain of sand, Sara made a small commitment. “I decided to pick up trash for 20 minutes,” she remembers.

Here’s how one tiny grain of sand can start a movement.

Those 20 minutes grew to a commitment of 365 days of picking up trash. Still just 20 minutes worth, but a full year worth of 20 minute sessions. “Not 365 consecutive days,” Sara made sure to clarify. Like so many of us, she is super-busy and realistic. She wanted to set herself up for success.

Her husband raised the bar. “Why don’t you blog about this?” he suggested to his computer-phobic wife.

“Blog?!” she resisted. Sara felt about as comfortable with social media and new fangled online inventions as she does with that trash. Yet, she soon found it took about 5 minutes to set up the blog and a Twitter account.

The Daily Ocean blog was born. It’s nothing glamorous. Sara goes out each day she can and picks up trash for 20 minutes. She weighs it, takes some photos of what she’s found and posts it on her blog.

Who would care about that? Turns out thousands and thousands of people who now follow her online. They know that Sara is about two-thirds of the way through her 365-day commitment. She’s picked up more than 800 pounds of trash. Even bigger is the way she’s piqued interest.

“Can I start my own Daily Ocean commitment?” Sara is often asked. Of course, she tells them, “Sure!” Suddenly, there are others picking up trash on beaches and other areas around their communities across the country.

“Together, we’re looking at two-thirds of a ton of trash that’s been picked up,” Sara told me.

How amazing is that? To any of us feeling overwhelmed by the numbers, by feeling that you can’t really make a difference with the amount of time, money and power you feel you have, Sara has one word of advice: Start.

“Action feels better than inaction,” she promises.

I thank her for showing that and keeping clean a place that will forever have a special place in my heart.

Daryn Kagan is the creator of DarynKagan.com, She is the author of “What’s Possible! 50 True Stories of People Who Dared To Dream They Could Make a Difference.”

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