If you have no special plans for your holidays, why not spend your time helping others?

Don’t listen to people who say the young people today often think only of themselves. It’s not true at all. More and more people in the USA volunteer to spend their school holidays working for others. And they don’t do it for money. Here are some of their stories.

I’m going to help the Forest Centre build new hiking paths in the mountains. It’s going to be wonderful—I’ll spend the whole summer living in the tent and breathing the clean mountain air.I’m going to sleep under the stars. It’ll be a nice sport, and I’ll be able to do something good at the same time.

This summer, I’m going to volunteer with Special House Program. They build good, low-cost houses and sell them to families that are not very rich. They’ll teach me what to do, so I’ll help people and also have a chance to learn how to build houses.

I’m going to teach kids who have trouble reading. I’ll work for a program called Reading For Life. Every day, I’m going to help kids choose and read books that they like. I want to be a teacher and I love children and reading, so this is going to be a great experience for me.

Many actions have been taken to fight food waste. 【小题1】 Liu Jichen, 23, a student from Tsinghua University, users can open the mini-program and take a picture of their empty plates. Once the picture is recognized（辨认）by the AI, students can collect points and use them to buy gifts. 【小题2】

The team also started a campaign called “Clear Your Plate” in Chinese universities in 2018. It has attracted over 1,017 universities across the country. Students compete against each other to see who can get those most points in Clear Plate. Now in its third year, the one-month campaign has reached 1,017 schools.

【小题3】 In 2017, he found that the restaurant would give diners who finished off their food a card and offer small gifts after a certain number of cards had been collected.

“Progress in technology is good to cut down food waste,” Liu thought. He organized a team of 20 members to work on the project at the end of 2017. Now, they have already taught their AI how to recognize empty plates. 【小题4】

“There were so many unknowns in research and development. For our team members, the biggest challenge was whether we were confident enough to complete it,” Liu said. They not only achieved their goal, the mini-program has more than 5 million users.

Thanks to his work, Liu was chosen as one of the United Nations’ 2020 Class of Young Leaders for the Sustainable Development Goals. “【小题5】 Meanwhile, our efforts can contribute Chinese wisdom and solutions to global food security challenges.” he added.

“Make-A-Wish” is one of the world’s most well-known charities（慈善机构）. It makes wishes come true for children who have serious illnesses. It gives them hope and joy and helps them forget about their health problems and have fun.

It started in 1980 in Phoenix, Arizona. Christopher was a 7-year-old boy who was very sick. He always dreamed of becoming a police officer. Tommy Austin and Ron Cox, two police officers, made his wish come true. They gave Christopher a tour of the city in a police helicopter（直升飞机）and made a real police uniform（制服）for him.

There are four kinds of wishes children usually have:

I wish to go. Children usually want to travel or go to a concert, a game or a park.

I wish to meet. Children sometimes want to meet their favourite actors, singers or players.

I wish to be. Some children wish to become actors, singers or police officers.

I wish to have. They often want to have a computer, a game, a bike or many other things.

Let’s hope more wishes will come true in the future. People who work in the charity always try for the best. Almost 25,000 volunteers help, work or give money. Will you be one of them?