Last night Nicholas Kristof told the story of a boy on a beach who collected starfish washed onto the sand and threw them back into the ocean one by one. A man came along and told him he'd never make a difference, but the boy replied "It sure made a difference to that one."

What if there were thousands, or even millions of boys and girls on the beach, an entire clean up crew, and each one saved at least one starfish?

That is the possibility in cities like Seattle.

A city where each citizen is linked to another citizen of a city somewhere in the world that needs our help.

We have sister city programs where delegations of bureaucrats go visit each other and talk about expanding ties. That's the old paradigm. So here's my idea: take Seattle's enormous talents, compassion and global perspective, and scale it up.

Time for the younger generation to redefine this civic pillar and make it really meaningful.

Because something is happening here but you don't know what it is, in the words of Dylan. A whole generation is looking at the world in a new way and is hungry to change it. These are the students who pack auditoriums and line up for hours to meet their rock stars - the Paul Farmers and Kavita Ramdases and Nicholas Kristofs of the world.

Three years ago an 11-year-old girl, Jessica Markowitz, decided to help educate girls in Rwanda. She traveled back and forth, raised more than $30,000, and now she's expanding her partnership to high schools in Seattle and Kigali. At Bellevue High School Brett Mennella helped start a microfinance club, which raised more than $130,000 for a local non-profit helping poor entrepreneurs, and now five other high schools have followed his lead. There are countless other examples here and in cities across the U.S.

Everyone knows the wealth system today is unequal. As Kristof said, we who won the birth lottery buy lattes and iPods while kids overseas starve. But we as individuals have the power to change it ourselves right now, and even the technology.

The Kiva model has shown the possibilities for transformation when one person uses the Internet to send one tiny bit of her resources to one other person.

Joe Mallahan would like it, from what I hear about his ideas to use mobile phones for social business. Mike McGinn would like it, from what I hear about his enthusiasm for grassroots environmental movements.

Someone in Edmonds liked the idea, because he made sure every one of its 43,000 residents could give $1 to help Carol Schillios save girls in Mali.

Kristof also told us about a $10,000 bank mistake that saved a school in China that was able to waive $13 in school fees for each of the girls, who became accountants and sent money back to their town, which got a road built and attracted more investment, which made life better for everyone. A virtuous cycle.

What if we could change a whole town in a place like Cambodia or Cameroon, and create a new sister cities model for others? Take soft power right down to the local level.

We have 602,000 residents in Seattle, and most of them can afford a latte. Some school in some town with a poor girl who can't afford an education is just waiting for us to notice.