Manny Abreu practices Benjamin Franklin’s famous saying, “If you want something done, ask a busy person.”

Throughout his four years at Kellenberg Memorial High School in the US, Abreu made community service an important part of his life.

“I don’t know where he finds the time to do everything,” said Erin Ronan, Abreu’s math teacher, “He’s truly a class act .”

As an excellent student, Abreu, 18, took part in different voluntary(志愿的) activities after school, during weekends and summer holidays. These included helping staff at the public library, doing garden work at Kellenberg, and serving customers at a local restaurant.

But faced with a limited number of hours in a day, Abreu left his library job last summer to start working as an emergency medical technician – a role that fits his strong love for making a difference in other people’s lives.

“My love for service has guided me into giving back,” said Abreu, who is setting his sights on becoming a doctor. “It’s such a rewarding feeling to help someone.”

During his three years at high school, Abreu devoted between 40 and 50 hours of his time each year to volunteer work – more than double the school’s annual requirement of 20 hours. For all his hard work, Abreu was welcomed into a leadership club that organizes fellow students’ volunteer activities.

St Martin de Porres Marianist School (Kellenberg’s sister school) also benefited from Abreu’s devotion. Through his school’s Smart Club program, he voluntarily provided homework help and played games with the junior high school students.

Abreu thanked his parents for inspiring him to do the right thing, saying they are “the most selfless people I know.” He remembered when he was about 6 years old, and his mother invited a disadvantaged neighborhood boy to have dinner.

Upon seeing the boy’s happiness, Abreu came away with a sense of how he wanted to live his own life – “I won’t focus on my own desires (愿望). I’ll help as many people as I can,” he said.

Floyd Norman, 81, was just 20 years old in 1956 when Walt Disney Studios employed him. He was the first African-American artist to be employed by the company. “It wasn’t something he set out to do as a goal,” Erik Sharkey said. Sharkey is a codirector of the documentary Floyd Norman: An Animated Life. “It sort of happened by his pursuing(追求) the thing that he loved.”

Norman’s first assignment was on Sleeping Beauty. He drew the characters positions that made them appear to move. A few years later, he helped bring the animated sequences(连续镜头)in Mary Poppins to life.

While at the studio, Norman liked to create gag(诙谐)drawings that he would post around the office. His coworkers, including Walt Disney, appreciated the humor. Disney assigned Norman a job on The Jungle Book. Norman drew the “Trust in Me sequence, in which Kaa, the snake, hypnotizes(迷惑)the boy, Mowgli. It was cool to be in that room with Walt - as long as he didn’t spot you. He might ask you a question,” Norman says in the documentary, “I thought he was always going to ask me: What are you doing here?”

In 1966, Norman left Disney to start Vignette Films with three friends. They made educational movies, including a series devoted to black history. But Norman never stopped drawing. He worked on Scooby-Doo, Jonny Quest, and Josie and the Pussycats. He also drew a Mickey Mouse comic strip(连环漫画)for Disney. In 1997, he joined Pixar to work on Toy Story 2.

Today, Norman is back at Disney. where he is an inspiration to young artists. But he is not ready to call himself a pioneer. “I never saw myself as anything special,” Norman says. “I was just another artist looking for a job.”

When I was about twelve, I headed to a restaurant for dinner with my family. It was a windy winter night. As my mom and I headed towards the restaurant from our car, a girl about my age and her mother came up to us. They asked if we had any spare dollars. My mom immediately asked where they kept their things. They pointed to an old car in the parking across the street. The girl said there were six of them living in that car, the same size as my own family.

My mom said she had something to do after handing the people a few dollars. She sent me inside the restaurant with my dad and my three siblings(兄弟姐妹). But she didn’t come.

Later, I found out she had gone home and emptied our cupboards into a few bags. Then, she brought that food over to the car and handed the bags to the family. I wasn’t there when that part happened, but I could imagine the joy it brought to their faces.

A few days later, when I actually found out about what she had done, I asked her why she helped those people. She told me that they were not lucky. I remember the face of that girl who had asked us for dollars;she was the same age as me, yet our lives were so different.

Here I stood, dressed in almost new clothes, headed to a restaurant and then back home to the bedroom I shared with my younger sister. I remembered thinking that the girl didn’t have any food to eat and that she was heading back to a cold car shared with five other people.

After painting this picture in my mind, I understood my mom. I will never forget what she did that night. And that night I also learned one of the best lessons she taught me.