【推荐1】Ryan Hickman is only seven years old, but he's already been saving for his college fund with profits from. his recycling business.

When Ryan wag three, he went with his dad to the local recycling center and made money from a few bags of cans and bottles. When he learned money can be made from that, Ryan decided recycling was his future.

"We had gone to the center with a couple of bags, and he really loved the actual act of putting all the cans and bottles into the machine and getting the money from it, and that kind of act got him hooked, "described Damion Hickman, Ryan's father.

Ryan told his parents that he wanted to give empty plastic bags to all the neighbors and hoped they would save their recyclables for him. Not only did the neighbors save their cans and bottles for Ryan but so did their co-workers, families, and friends. Soon after, Ryan started his own business, Ryan's Recycling, and has since recycled over 200,000 cans and bottles. Every week, he and his family sort through bags of recyclables and they take them to the local recycling center where they are sorted and weighed.

So far, Ryan has saved more than $ 10 000 for college from his profits and he also sells T-shirts on his website and donates the profits to the Pacific Marine Mammal Center in Laguna Beach. "For the sea lions to get food and medicine," he said.

Ryan has an important message for everyone, "If you already recycle, just keep on recycling, If you don't recycle, start recycling.” Always a great businessman, Ryan added, "If you want to buy one of these T-shits, it's $13 on ryansrecycling. com. "

【推荐3】In 1993, eight-year-old Brandon Keefe sat in a corner at the Hollygrove Children’s Home, waiting for his mother to finish talking. He heard that Hollygrove Home needed a library, but all they had was an empty space and lots of kids without books.

The next day, when Brandon’s teacher asked the students to come up with ideas for a community service project, Brandon remembered what he had heard. An idea occurred to him at once. What about all the books he had read? He had many that he was too old for, and knew his friends had some, too. What if they gave them to the Hollygrove Home to create a library? Brandon started a project to collect books, and soon he had 847 books. The big empty room at Hollygrove was filled, and every child had a book to take to bed at night.

When Brandon entered 7th grade, he, as well as his friends, began another book project. In one week, the school collected 5,000 books. The Hollygrove library couldn’t handle them all. A local public school, Limerick Elementary, became the next new library created by Brandon and his friends. The headmaster realized that Brandon’s idea was simple and effective. She began sharing it throughout the schools in Los Angeles.

Brandon was surprised when, one day, a photographer from the Los Angeles Times called him out of class. They wrote about him in the newspaper, which led to some local community service awards. Then he was invited to appear on the very popular TV program Oprah. Brandon said, “After appearing on Oprah, many people knew about us and we were able to set up a non-profit organization called BookEnds.”

By 2001, the 60,000 volunteers had collected around 150,000 books for BookEnds. They had completed 46 libraries, with 32 more under development, helping more than 40,000 children who didn’t have books before.

Brandon feels especially good that BookEnds is growing. “There are 60,000 people involved and I’m just one of them. It’s great to know you’ve made a difference and that things are going to change because of what you’ve done.”