题型:阅读理解 题类:常考题 难易度:普通
浙江省丽水市发展共同体2019-2020学年高二下学期英语期中考试试卷(含听力音频)
Everywhere inside Valerie Tolman's home in Missouri City are signs that she has a big heart. There are family photos, including those of two biological and two adopted children who are all now grown; her two rescue dogs, Ivy and Ellie, are close by and, in an upstairs bedroom, are four kittens she's looking after. Her love of animals and passion for helping strays (走失的宠物) find homes earned her the Missouri City Volunteer of the Year award in 2017.
Tolman, a former newspaper reporter and software-industry analyst, started the volunteer program at the Missouri City Animal Shelter in 2014 after she retired. She later formed the Friends of the Missouri City Animal Shelter, a nonprofit to expand the group's efforts to keep animals healthy, alive and adoptable. "I like living things, and it breaks my heart to think something is suffering — animals or humans," Tolman said.
She even challenged city officials about the lack of funding (资金提供) for the shelter, and encouraged the public to complain (投诉) in letters and emails to the City Council. Eventually, the council budgeted $250,000 for the shelter. "I fought city hall and won," she said. "The animals are in such better shape. I'm proud of that."
But she's most proud of her efforts to send high school students from low-income families to college. She and her husband Davis Tolman, a retired petroleum geologist, started a scholarship for first-generation college students in 2001. Tolman said 5l students have received full tuition (学费), including books, through the program. Although the graduation rate for the scholarship receivers is 54 percent, Tolman said all of the students tended to become successful in life simply because they attended college. Most of the students are the first in their families to go to college.
"It has a ripple effect, and even though some may not finish, there is a feeling that anything is possible," she said. "We now have nurses, teachers and engineers because of this program."
试题篮