3 . Traci Ruble, a psychotherapist (心理治疗师), felt worried that people today were experiencing loneliness and a shortage of personal connections. She understood that with busy lives and challenging jobs, people were unable to make these connections.

So on a spring day in 2015, Ruble and a small number of volunteers set up chairs on sidewalks in 12 locations around San Francisco, California and invited people passing by to sit for a few minutes and chat. This was the beginning of Sidewalk Talk, an organization whose mission is to create public spaces of connections where the people are.

Today, the organization has more than 4,000 volunteers in 40 cities. Around 25 percent of the volunteers are licensed therapists (持证治疗师). They come from different backgrounds and are a mixed group. Volunteers receive training from the organization.

Listening activities are held several times a month along with other organizations. In San Francisco, Sidewalk Talk partners with Lava Mae, a non-governmental organization (NGO) that brings mobile showers to homeless people.

Sidewalk Talk gives people a chance to speak and be listened to but it is not therapy, according to Ruble. “I’m not interacting as a therapist out there. I’m not there to solve someone’s problems,” she said. “I’m there to practice being human.”

Ruble stressed that therapy is one-sided and that therapists are taught to avoid self-disclosure(自我表露) but by “being human” she could carry out interactions by sharing her own life and showing empathy (同感) with the people she talks with.

According to a report, 31 percent of all Americans experience serious loneliness including 61 percent of young adults. To fix that, rebuilding community relationships is very important. While listening activities will not solve the loneliness problem, these chats could help someone have a brighter day. Knowing that there are empathetic people who are willing to fully listen and share your feelings could make all the difference to a lonely person.

Students Sprang into Action to Clear Snow

Volunteer travel involves taking a trip     1     all or part of the purpose is to participate in an arranged service opportunity helping others. Usually, these trips are arranged by church organizations, human interest groups,     2     non-profits.

Charitable interests often go far beyond national     3    (boundary) and sometimes, donating money is not enough     4     (satisfy) the need to help. Volunteer travel is a way to combine a visit to a new location with meaningful work that has a direct impact     5     communities in other parts of the world.

This type of travel has been     6     option for many years.     7     (historic), church groups made up a large part of this market. Once a year a religious organization would organize a trip to another country. The primary purpose of the trip was very specific. For example, it would be to help build a school, dig wells or engage in hundreds of other projects that would impact those less fortunate.

As international travel becomes by far     8     (easy), volunteering in other countries has become as     9     (access) as browsing a website and signing up. This sort of volunteer travel     10     (refer) to as voluntourism or vacanteerism from time to time.

7 . Six-year-old Ryan Coutinho wasn’t used to smiling. He felt _______ after losing almost all his teeth at the age of three. Now he does. And he is always _______ to Amanda Mattos.

The boy lives in a _________ family. He had his teeth pulled out because of cavities(蛀牙). Only a few on his lower part remained. Ms. Mattos, 25, met Ryan at the boy’s school for the first time two years ago, where Ryan’s teacher told Mattos he _________ smiled and communicated little. Ms Mattos would like to _________ the boy after contacting his mother, but his mother _______ the offer. “They couldn’t afford the _______,” the dentist said. “They were still shaken by the _______ that took his teeth out.”

Ryan’s story could have _______ here. But two years later, by accident, his mother got a job as a cleaner at the ________, which Ms. Mattos owns. The boy had a pain in one of his remaining teeth. He went to the clinic for a (an) ________ and met Ms Mattos again. “I asked him what he wanted. He replied: ‘a smile like my friends’,” the dentist said.

Ms. Mattos agreed to do it for free. The mother happily __________ the kindness. Then, two days after Brazil’s Children’s Day, Ryan finally got a new denture (假牙). “We all cried. It was very moving,” Ryan’s mother said.

16-year-old Tim looked up to his father Roger, who worked as a firefighter. While the teenager always talked about his dream of joining the fire department, the man didn’t believe the boy was cut out to be a firefighter because Tim left the usual stereotype of a bookworm: a straight-A student who wore large glasses, and was physically weak.

It was a typical school day. Tim’s math teacher announced their weekly test results, and the boy was delighted to learn that he had scored the highest mark. His friend Harry, however, was upset because he got a bad grade.

Seeing him sit in a corner with his head resting on the table, he approached him and said, “Hey, Harry, I know you got a bad grade, but I can teach you these topics. You’ll grasp it in no time, I’m sure. And you can improve your grade next week. What do you say?” “That’s so sweet of you, Tim! Let’s meet at my house after school today,” Harry said with a smile. “Sure!” Tim replied.

Harry lived on the outskirts of town. It took Tim, who passed his driving test recently, half an hour to drive there. Once his car neared Harry’s estate, he was shocked to see a blazing fire. Upon driving closer, he realized his house was on fire. Frightened, he quickly picked up his phone and called 911.

Then, Tim took off his shirt, grabbed a bottle of water from his car, and poured it on the shirt. He wrapped the wet shirt around his face, as he had seen in movies, and entered the house. He started climbing towards the hallway window of Harry’s bedroom.

Tim found a baseball bat in the hall. It took him five whole minutes to swing it hard enough to break the window. Once the glass was broken, he rushed towards Harry’s room. He couldn’t see much because of the thick black smoke floating in the air, but he managed to locate him. He was lying unconscious (昏迷的) on his bed after breathing in the smoke.

He knew he had to act fast before it was too late.

Roger received an unexpected call from the hospital telling him of Tim’s heroic act.

Just an hour after completing her first aid course, Mamta     1     (wait) at a bus stop when she heard a crash and saw a motorcyclist flying through the air — his helmet was going one way and his motorbike the other. She could also see a pedestrian (行人) was knocked down.

As other pedestrians stood     2     (shock) by the scene, Mamta immediately stepped forward and helped. The motorcyclist’s eyes were rolling back; his head and arm     3     (injure), and he was making noises. So she shouted at him, “Can you breathe?” As he was given emergency     4     (treat), the confused motorcyclist actually tried to walk away     5     Mamta insisted he wait for the ambulance. Once the motorcyclist was comfortable, Mamta went over     6     (check) on the injured pedestrian and pressed her blouse on his     7     (bleed) arm. Before long, official medical help arrived.

Looking back on the incident, Mamta said, “I     8     (ask) tons of questions all through that day’s course. Little did I know that I’d be putting it     9     practice on my way home. It just shows that even the most basic training can make     10     difference.”

10 . When 19-year-old Emily Bhatnagar from Maryland, USA, found out her father had stage four thyroid (甲状腺) cancer, her response was a little different than you might expect. To honour her father, who she also describes as her best friend, she decided to start a book drive called For Love and Buttercup, collecting books for kids with cancer.

“It was very much an overnight idea,” she explains. “I posted a message on an app called Nextdoor asking my neighbours for used book donations. I was only expecting a few here and there, but the response was truly incredible, and it was just the push I needed to co-exist with my grief rather than letting it consume me.

“It was absolutely heartbreaking to watch my dad go through cancer and see him lose a little bit of himself each day, but the book drive allowed me to develop a newfound sense of purpose combined with an even greater sense of compassion (同情) to help others in any shape or form. I wanted to help kids. They’ve always held a soft spot in my heart.”

Using tips she earns from working at her parents’ bread shop, Emily has bought many books out of her own pocket. In addition, she receives donations through her Amazon wish list, which can be found in the bio of the book drive’s Instagram account.

Emily and her older brother spent a whole summer driving around town, loading boxes of books into their car. “It was such an honour knowing people have carried these books all their lives through generations, and they wanted to gift it to my cause.”

The project has seen huge success, with For Love and Buttercup donating over 15,000 books and being recognized by The Washington Post, Forbes, The President’s Volunteer Service Award and Lady Gaga’s Born This Way Foundation.