There is a school called the Huaping High School for Girls in Lijiang, Yunnan Province. Its headmaster (校长) Zhang Guimei opened it twelve years ago and she has sent 1, 804 girls here to great colleges (大学) all over the country.

In 1996, when Zhang Guimei came to teach in Huaping, she found many young girls left school at a very young age. They went to work or got married because their families didn’t have money. To let these young girls have a good education, Zhang decided to open a free school for them.

After years of hard work, the Huaping High School for Girls finally opened. Zhang almost gave all her life to the students here. Some girls were afraid of the dark teaching building when they came to school early, so Zhang went to the school at 5 a. m. and turn on the lights of the teaching building for them. When the students studied in the classroom late at night, Zhang kept staying with them at school. Zhang also kept visiting the students’ homes to know more about them.

Zhou Yunli was one of Zhang’s students. She became a middle school teacher in a big city after finishing college. When hearing that her old school needed some math teachers, Zhou Yunli went back to her home town right away, “Without Ms. Zhang’s school, I would be nobody. It’s time for me to repay (报答) her and my old school.”

Today, more and more people try to become a volunteer. The meaning of the word “volunteer” may be a little different in different countries, but it usually means “one who offers his or her services.” It is difficult to help others all the time, but if you insist in (坚持) that, you will be very happy. If you have a lot of free time, you should take an active part in activities, such as taking care of sick people, working in a homeless children’s home, and picking up garbage from beaches and parks.

Jenny, a good friend of mine, came back from India with a new idea of being a volunteer. Helping others is also a kind of happiness. What’s more, when we help others, it can be a way of helping ourselves. When we learn how to give others, we can further our morals (道德规范). She worked in a home for sick people. She helped wash clothes and passed out lunch. She also fed the weak people and tried to cheer them up. She said that if all of us can give a helping hand as a volunteer, our world will be full of love and that will make our world nicer and nicer.

This year is the 21st year of a free library in a mountain village in Shaoyang, 77-year-old Yang Guangxun started the Ziqiang Library. He was born in this village and has more than 200,000 books at home.

When Yang retired in 2002, he and his wife sometimes went back to the village for they didn’t need to work any longer. Learning village children often had trouble finding books, Yang decided to give away all his books to start the library in August 2003. He hoped everyone in the village will make their lives rich through reading.

Over the past 21 years, Yang has given away hundreds of thousands of yuan to buy more books for the library. It now stores over 54,000 books and has 30,000 visitors every year.

As they live in Changsha, they ask friends and family in the village to take care of the library. Yang Chengshang has looked after the library since it started. He learned a lot about Chinese medicine through reading at the library. Now he succeeds in becoming a famous doctor. Thanks to the library, many students get great grades or get into university. They all think reading is the best thing in the world.