【推荐1】Eight hours and 48 miles into what was supposed to be a 24-hour run, Dan Frank entered his Columbia, MD, home at 2 a.m. last Saturday and sat on the sofa in the living room.

Frank, a 36-year-old who teaches math at Paint Branch High in Burtonsville, runs as a hobby, and about two weeks earlier he set a plan of running for 24 straight hours in support of the Howard County Food Bank during the COVID-19 outbreak. But he hit a wall.

Frank didn’t stay long. He got back up, had a lot to eat and drink, and returned to running Howard County’s roads. “It was like: ‘All right, well, you can’t imagine getting up, but it doesn’t really matter. Other people are depending on this, so get up and go,’” said Frank, who posted updates (最新消息) of his run on Facebook.

Late last month, David Kilgore, a 28-year-old who has made a career out of running, ran 100 miles in about 17 hours 47 minutes in Florida to help provide medical workers with supportive footwear. Frank brainstormed his idea and ran for about two weeks while he prepared for the online classes he is now teaching.

Frank began running about five years ago, and he has always felt road races were too serious for him. Still, he was encouraged to provide for those in need. His children attend Phelps Luck Elementary, where every month a mobile food pantry (储藏柜) is stationed. “Over the past month, fewer donations have been made to the food bank,” he said. “In good times, about 40 families show up every time we have that mobile food pantry, and I can’t imagine what it might be like now, with so many people losing their jobs.”

On Sunday night Frank had raised nearly $12, 000 for the Howard County Food Bank. “The coolest part besides raising the money is watching a community do a common cause in these times,” Frank said. “People are looking for things like that right now. They’re at home on Facebook anyway; they want to cheer something on that has some good meaning behind it.”

【推荐2】Martin Kocher, an international business student at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, has always been interested in exploring different cultures and traditions in preparation for a global career. Focusing on global management, he was super motivated (激励) to develop his career about sustainable development.

Kocher is set to graduate in May with a major in international business, expressing his gratitude to the university for training his international ambitions. After he completed the internship (实习) in Australia, he traveled to a small island of Lombok near Bali, Indonesia. A teacher at the local school told Kocher that the English language can empower students and allow them to bridge the cultural gap with people in other parts of the world, but the school lacked the resources.

As a result. when Kocher returned to U’W-Eau Claire, he founded Language 4 Lombok to connect English language resources from Chippewa Valley residents with the Indonesian island. Books from community book drives are shipped abroad to help children learn English.

His non-profit work is not his whole life. He is also a competitive diver, part-time real estate agent, enthusiastic photographer and writer. Dr. Kaishan Kong, a professor of Kocher said he is a real jack of all trades, and was impressed with his ability to connect different languages while maintaining an incredible enthusiasm for learning them.

Having benefited a lot from his own experiences, Kocher encourages others to travel and venture internationally, calling it “one of the best investments you can make in yourself.”

【推荐3】When it comes to providing energy to the masses, Greg Hazle’s experience is deep. Before his retirement in 2017, his extensive corporate career spanned public service, independent energy, mining and construction materials industries. He has held roles in corporate finance and also put his training in engineering to work and helped design power projects throughout the United States and Latin America.

Outside of his high-powered career, Hazle always found ways to give back. And, sometimes, others plotted those ways for him. In 2014, a board member from Boca Helping Hands (BHH) , local nonprofit, saw Hazle sing at the church they both attended. He asked around about Hazle and thought he’d be a good addition to the nonprofit’s board of trustees.

“All of this was happening without me knowing,” Hazle smiled. But once Hazle learned about the nonprofit’s work, he was onboard. BHH is a community-based nonprofit in Boca Raton, Florida, which provides food, medical, financial, and job-training assistance to help people meet their basic needs and become self-sufficient.

Despite his success in corporate America, Hazle always remembered his days growing up in Jamaica, when he had seen the impact of poverty, homelessness, and hunger around him. While he lived in a place that had such a reputation for wealth and self-indulgence (放纵), he was sharply aware that there were people around him — even in a place like Boca Raton — who needed help. Over the next few years, Hazle became involved in many aspects of the organization.

Hazle’s preparing for his retirement at age 60 was co-occurrent with the managing director of BHH leaving around. Hazle agreed to step in and run the organization as a temporary leader with the condition that a search firm would be kept to find a new leader. “Obviously, that’s not how it turned out,” he said.

Since then, Hazle has accepted the role wholeheartedly. He feels a renewed sense of purpose in his role, which suits his personality and passions more than others he has held. “So, it just felt like a privilege that I was given this opportunity and late in my career to do what I consider to be more meaningful work than generating returns for shareholders.”