There are many elderly people in Erdingford living on their own. Most of them find it difficult to go out and to look after themselves. Yet most of them love their homes and want to go on living in them as long as possible. Helping Hand is an organization and it helps such people to live independent lives in their own homes.

But our work depends on volunteers. They visit our clients (客户) and help them with daily activities, or just stay together with them for an hour or so. Some of the elderly clients we help have poor eyesight and often they need someone to read to them. Others just want to enjoy some friendly talks or playing cards or chess.

What you do for your client depends on three sides — you, your Volunteer Support Officer and the person you are helping. If you are not happy to do something, you can say no freely.

Working in Helping Hand is a win-win on both sides. On one hand, the volunteer can help to keep our elderly clients independent. On the other hand, volunteers learn so much from their clients’ life experience. As the 18-year-old volunteer Roy said, “I thought voluntary work would be a matter of doing little jobs for an old person I didn’t know, and then feeling glad with myself because I’d done something good. But it wasn’t really like that. It was more like a friendship: I learnt so much from Margaret about her generation (一代) , how things were in the past, and about life itself. And she took me seriously and always listened to what I said carefully. ”

The Winning Team

Peter kept his eyes on the ground. He felt like there was a heavy weight on his shoulders as he walked home alone. It was the worst day of his life. His mind would not stop thinking about what happened only just an hour ago on the school soccer field. How could he have missed scoring that goal? He had let his whole team down. His stupid mistake made him angry. His team had lost the game because of him. He was really worried that his coach might kick him off the team.

As soon as he walked through the door, his father asked, “what’s wrong, son?” Peter’s feelings were written all over his face. “I lost the game,” Peter replied. Then he went into his room without another word. Ten minutes later, Peter heard his father knocking on his bedroom door. He opened the door to let him in.

“Look, Peter. I don’t know what happened. But whatever it was, don’t be too hard on yourself.”

“I lost the game, Dad. I failed my team. They’ll probably never let me play again.”

“Soccer is about team effort. You’re not the only reason your team lost. If you have a good team, you should support each other. Besides, winning or losing is only half the game. The other half is learning how to communicate with your teammates and learning from your mistakes.”

Peter didn’t say anything but what his father said made him think carefully.

The next day, Peter went to soccer practice with courage rather than fear in his heart.

“Hey, guys,” he said to his teammates. “I’m really sorry about yesterday. We were so close to winning that game. But I think if we continue to pull together, we’re going to win the next one.”

To his surprise and relief, his teammates all nodded in agreement.

“Yeah,” they said, “don’t worry about it. It’s never just one person’s fault. We should think about how we can do better next time.”

Peter smiled. It made him feel lucky to know that he was on a winning team.

On Feb 12, 2021, Dalian was taking a train to Changsha, Hunan, for a business trip. While on the train, he went into a carriage (车厢) to have lunch and chose to remain in the carriage. He didn’t know that the carriage was only for people to Wuhan.

Several hours later, when the train arrived in Wuhan, Dalian was asked to get off.

Because of the epidemic (疫情), Wuhan had been locked down. So Dalian couldn’t find a hotel to stay in. Feeling sad, he saw a notice online looking for volunteers to work in hospitals. Dalian decided to give it a try.

He soon became a volunteer in Wuhan No.1 Hospital. He was responsible for taking out rubbish, sweeping the floor (消毒) the hospital, dealing with used protective suits (防护服).

The young man, reportedly from northeast China, had to work 12 hours every day, he couldn’t drink anything or go to the bathroom. He also had to look after infected (感染的) patients, which is risky (冒风险的).

Dalian was afraid of getting infected at first. “When I entered the wards(病房), I was kind of frozen (僵硬的) and felt like I couldn’t move, his fear gradually went away.

Dalian’s story has gone viral (走红的) online. People were surprised by his experience, and described him as having “a heart of gold”.