During work hours in Becker’s bread shop, the kitchen is especially quiet except the sound of the machine. The quiet environment is not the result of the strict rules, but because all the workers are deaf. They use sign language to communicate with each other from time to time.

Becker’s shop is in Changsha City, Hunan Province. It sells many kinds of German bread, cakes and coffee. It’s very popular for the story of Becker—the owner of the shop.

Over twenty years ago, Becker and his wife heard about a Chinese public project. It provided language training for the disabled children, but it was short of(缺少)trainers in Changsha. So they came in 2002 with a common wish.

In Changsha, they helped children improve their hearing and language pronunciation. Every little progress each child experienced was a great encouragement to them, and they achieved their goal in life.

After ten years of working for this project, they found that the disabled adults couldn’t be independent because they had no skills. Then Becker and his wife set up a bread shop to teach these people how to make bread. With the couple’s help, all of them were able to live on their own.

Luckily, Becker and his wife have also got the support from the local government. More people join them and understand disabled people can work as well as others when they have the same chances.

Yang Songbo is 94 years old now, but he still works as a music teacher in Anhui Province.

Yang is from a small town of Anhui. He worked there as a rural (乡村的) music teacher for about 40 years. In 1990, he retired. But after he learned some rural schools were short of music teachers, he decided to go on teaching. “I usually have 6 music lessons at a school and 5 lessons at another school every week,” the man said. To make his lessons more interesting, Yang started to learn to play the piano in 2006 when he was 77 years old. At the age of 80, Yang felt that he was too old to teach music. But the children wanted him to stay. “Students wanted me to teach music. So I decided to go on teaching,” Yang said.

He doesn’t stop there. Yang also uses some of his money to help students in need. Liu Lili is one of the students he helped. About ten years ago, Liu, then a student in Grade 4, had to stop schooling because her family didn’t have enough money. When Yang heard about that, he helped the girl. “I try my best to help children in need,” the old man said.

“I feel happy to teach music,” Yang said. “For children in rural schools, music is a way to help them make their dreams (梦想) come true.”

Helping others is a great thing to do. You can learn new things and have fun. ▲ You can help people, animals or the environment. It can make you feel good!

Charities(慈善机构) are organizations for helping people in need. You can help charities by giving your time, money or things that you own. You can also help people or places you know.

Volunteering. Volunteering is the activity of giving your time to help others, and what’s more, you are glad to do it though you can’t get paid from it. Some ways of volunteering are:

●visiting old people and talking to them

●walking dogs at an animal shelter(避难所)

●cleaning up a park or a street

Fundraising. Fundraising is the activity of collecting money to help others. Some ways of fundraising are:

●getting food, books or other kinds of things to sell

●doing a sponsored activity (慈善筹款活动). It means others agree to give you money for charity if you finish some unusual work.

Donating. Donating is the activity of giving away your things or money to help others. Some ways of donating are:

●giving away your old toys or clothes to a charity that helps poor children

●giving away your money to a charity

Here are some ways of helping others. So, try your best to make someone’s day better.