The word “charity” often brings to mind headlines like “Taylor Swift donates ‘very sizable’ amount to Hurricane Harvey survivors” and “J.K. Rowling donates $30 million to help children in need”.

But the rest of us, who are not rich or famous, may sometimes feel like we can’t really contribute to charity in a meaningful way.

But what you probably don’t know is that Swift has visited many sick children in hospitals and played the guitar and sang for them. Rowling, the UK writer who wrote the Harry Potter series, once read an unfinished Harry Potter book over the phone to a 9-year-old girl in New York because the girl had cancer and wasn’t sure if she would still be alive when the book was published.

These small kindness are just as powerful as money and fame（名气）themselves. Just as Mother Teresa(1910-1997), winner of the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize, is believed to have once said, “Not all of us can do great things. But we can all do small things, with great love. And together, we can do something wonderful.”

This is probably why the annual International Day of Charity, which falls on Sept 5—the same date as Mother Teresa’s birthday—was created by the United Nations back in 2013. On this day, we can clear up misunderstandings we may have about charity and think of the importance of small kindnesses.

People might already be contributing to charity without even realizing it. In the US, for example, many companies give a small percentage of the money they make to charities. And in China, Alipay has a feature called Ant Forest that takes everyday low-carbon activity—such as walking instead of driving—and turns it into virtual(虚拟的)“energy” that is used to grow virtual trees. For every virtual tree that is grown, Alipay and its partners plant a real tree in the deserts of Northwest China.

These efforts may sound too small to make a real difference, but they do. “We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.” as Mother Teresa once said.

Two months ago, my son Eric lost his trombone（长号）. We were very sad.

We learned that telling friends about our sad things made us feel better and less worried. We received sweet messages from friends showing their care for us. Eric received the sweetest letter reminding us that although things in life can be sad and make us upset, we can still find kindness around us.

And then, another student at a different school heard about the situation and decided to give his trombone to my son. It turned out that it was the same kind as the lost one.

We met this young man who gave it to Eric. He hoped that Eric should never stop learning and making music.

We were so thankful and happy. Eric had his first concert a couple of weeks ago. One thing about kindness is that to the receiver of kindness, it might not be necessary, but to the giver who wants to change things for the better, it becomes really necessary.

We are really thankful for everyone’s kindness. And we are thankful that the trombone got lost. It taught us so much about other people’s healing（治愈的）power, even people we have never met before.