Everyone Can Change the World

    What can we do to help protect the environment? It seems useless to just pick up a piece of trash, but what will happen if you keep doing it every day? Tommy Kleyn, an ordinary man from the Netherlands, may give you the answer.

    Tommy Kleyn walked past a polluted river on his way to work every day. It used to be a beautiful view, but the trash on the bank made it dirty and smelly. So Tommy decided to pick up the trash along the river a little bit at a time after work. "It took me about 30 minutes to fill one garbage bag with trash, but one garbage bag didn't seem helpful in a place as polluted as this. I decided to fill one bag of trash each day as I passed by," Tommy said. Every day, Tommy took pictures of the river and shared them on his Facebook page. To his surprise, in just six days, he had made great progress with his cleanup effort. He felt happy and kept doing it. Gradually, more and more people knew about Tommy's story. Other people in the community began following in his footsteps and cleaning up trash on their way home, too.

    "The idea is to encourage people to fill one garbage bag with litter each day. It only takes 30 minutes, but it really makes a difference and you will be amazed at how good you feel afterwards," he said.

    People from all over the world have been moved and inspired by Tommy's story. No effort is useless if we keep doing it every day. Ordinary people like you and me can also make a difference to the world we live in if we take actions right now.

    My school is so beautiful. It is in a small village in Germany. There's a special activity in my school. And I'm sure you've never heard about it. It is called Abi-Ulk. It's the favourite day for us.

    Every summer in our school, we have the Abi-Ulk day. On that day, students will no longer take lessons in classrooms but rush onto the playground. They can play games together and have fun for a whole school day. How about the teachers? They have to sit in an obstructed(堵住的) area to ensure that they can't control the students on the other side of the playground.

    Last year's Abi-Ulk impressed me a lot. I still remember that it was a hot day. We all went to the playground. But this time, we didn't just play games but had a water fight！Everyone had a water gun. We ran after each other and tried to shoot others with water. The fight was so exciting！After an hour, we all got wet. Then, the school band started to play. Teachers came from their "obstructed area" and joined us. We danced and sang. What a fun day!

    Here are some ideas for you on how to help others through volunteering.

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    When people get older, it becomes harder to do many things, from walking to the store to doing the housework. Old people living alone can also feel lonely. As a volunteer. You can do a lot to help the old in your neighborhood. You could visit them and help them with their housework.

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    Many people with disabilities need help. You could volunteer to read books to the blind or deliver(递送) something for people who can't get around too well.

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    There are lots of volunteer jobs to do in hospitals and health care centers. As a volunteer, you can make beds, deliver flowers and gifts, help serve meals, and do lots of other important jobs.

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    Some families don't have enough money to buy food and clothes for their kids. Some people don't have place to live at all. To help these people as a volunteer, you can give clothes, food or money t0, or raise money for, a charity(慈善机构).

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    Sometimes people need more help when the holidays come. Holidays are happy, but for people who are alone or unlucky, they can be a lonely, hard time. As a volunteer, you can deliver holiday dinners to less lucky people, visit the lonely old people and serve food to the homeless.

    I grew up in a small town in Ohio USA. There was a man, in my town named Bob. He couldn't talk clearly and didn't receive much education. So children in the town all thought he was silly and often played jokes on him.

    One day, when 1 met Bob, I decided to play a joke on him just like the other children. He asked how it was going. I told him that my father lost his job, and that, we didn't have enough money to live. Seeing my friends laughing far from us, I decided to continue to play the joke. I knew he was poor, so it seemed funny when he asked me if we needed anything. I told him that we didn't know-if we would have enough to eat.

    The next morning, I went out and found a box of food outside my house. I knew it was from Bob. I looked at the small box in shame(羞愧), and wanted to return the box. My father stopped me. He said it would hurt Bob's feeling.

    From that day on, when we had dinner, I would think of the small box. Bob gave me the best he had and I knew that I should not have been given that gift.

    "Mom, I dreamed about you all night. I dreamt that you had come back to me, but I know you are gone." says a post-80s girl named Lulu in a Sina Weibo post.

    Lulu has been "talking" to her deceased(已故的) mother through her microblog for the past four years. Her act has moved millions of Chinese netizens. Xinhua reported last Tuesday.

    The girl from Shenyang posted the first message to her mother in June. 2012, just over a week after her mother passed away. "I will keep talking to you until I leave the world", Lulu wrote. Since then, she has kept updating her post almost every day, expressing how she misses her mother and also shares exciting or sad moments of her daily life.

    Lulu said it's her way to "keep in touch "with her mother, as she used to talk with her three to four times a day when she was alive.

    During the past four years, she has posted over 1, 200 messages and got 86, 583 followers so far. One internet user said, "Every tweet moves me to tears, and thank you for reminding more people to cherish(珍惜) each day we have with our mother. "Another said this was the most touching microblog ever.

    Lulu said she was pleased that her microblog made more people realize their filial(子女的) duties and she hopes young people could take more time to be with their parents.