Over the winter vacation, volunteers made up of tutors and students from Changchun Radio and TV University (RTVU) were busy learning from Lei Feng(a role model in China, known for his unselfish deeds in helping and serving people). The Lei Feng volunteering service aims to help China’s core socialist values take root in the minds of the people through devotion to improving both oneself and society.
At the beginning of the 2016 winter vacation, a series of volunteering service activities with the theme of “Warm Winter Sunshine” was initiated by teachers and students from Changchun RTVU. They went to communities, libraries and migrant workers’families in their spare time. They sent greetings to needy families by giving “peace blessing cups” and having a get-together with sanitation workers, as well as serving nationwide efforts to improve reading. They embraced the spirit of the upcoming Spring Festival with selfless devotion, practicing socialist core values and passing on positive energy through their good deeds.
According to the Chinese lunar calendar, January 20 was the day of the “Great Cold”. While it was freezing cold outside, it was warm and lively inside the offices of Jilin Volunteering Service Federation. About 30 Lei Feng volunteering representatives from Changchun RTVU came to the headquarters of Jilin Volunteering Service Federation to experience the atmosphere in a provincial volunteer service. Major staff from the Federation showed everyone around the different posts in the institution, had a round table meeting with the volunteers, and gave a detailed introduction on their upcoming events and plans. The volunteers were greatly inspired, and many of them signed up as volunteers for the Federation onsite. A number of other colorful activities were held, including a commendation for excellent volunteers, a parenting lecture, and a musical composition salon. Zhang Ji’an is a Lei Feng volunteer from the class of 1998, Changchun RTVU. He carried on the fine tradition of his alma mater after graduation. He took part in this activity with his son, a first grade primary school student. He said it was an honor to visit Jilin Volunteering Service Headquarters. In order to be effective, volunteering services must start at a young age.
On January 30,teachers and students from Changchun RTVU celebrated the seventeenth themed volunteering activity from the“Warm Winter Sunshine” series, in spite of the minus 20 degree weather. They met with sanitation workers and thanked them on behalf of all the volunteers of the society and the general public for what they had done to keep the city clean. They sent them winter protection skin care products, and soybean oil and flour for the spring festival. They also gave an art performance for the workers on site. Volunteer Xu Jie is an electrical studies graduate from the class of 1998. She has been engaged in social activities since graduation; this time she bought soybean oil and flour for the workers. In her opinion, the priority for volunteering services is implementation, and persistence is highly valuable. Since frontline workers like the sanitation workers do such a painstaking job, she is happy to do her part for them, and she would go on with such actions. When RTVU student Wang Yuanyuan’s five-year-old daughter saw her mother buy skin care products for the workers, she insisted on coming to participate. Many other RTVU volunteers committed to the volunteer service with their families. Their one wish was to pass on positive energy and to make winter in the Spring City just a little bit warmer(Changchun is sometimes referred to as the spring city, since the second character in the Chinese name means ‘spring’)..
On February 22, the fifteenth day of the first month of the Chinese lunar calendar, Changchun RTVU’s volunteering teachers and students visited the low-rent houses in the north suburb of Changchun, sending sweet dumplings, milk and other festival presents bought with the money donated by the volunteers to five families, including the student Yang Zhifan’s family and Grandma Li’s family. Seeing the arrival of the volunteers, with tears of happiness in her eyes, Grandma Li once again urged them not to buy any more gifts.
The Changchun RTVU Lei Feng volunteering service started in the early 1990s. On the occasion of commemorating the 40th anniversary of learning from Lei Feng on March 5, 2003, the “Volunteer Home” was established online to organize the Lei Feng volunteering service. Many members of the team were excellent youths engaged in learning from Lei Feng as young volunteers in 1992, and carried on their volunteering services after graduation. Furthermore, they encouraged their children, relatives and friends to join the volunteering organization. Many of the people who joined “Volunteer Home” had been volunteering for more than 20 years, however, many of the new volunteers outplayed the early members and became excellent Lei Feng volunteers. In 2014, Changchun RTVU began using the“volunteering cloud” online management system. Over the past year, a total of 150 volunteering service projects have been released via the system with a volunteering service time amounting to more than7,000 hours. Volunteering services are now on a path to scientific and sustained development.
By Ren Zhiyong,Changchun RTVU
Photos from China.org.cn