Volunteering and its Surprising Benefits

In today's busy society, it can be hard to think about finding time to volunteer. _____ , the benefits of volunteering are enormous（巨大的）, both to you and to the community. The right match can help you find friends, reach out to the community, learn new skills and even _____ your career. Volunteering can even help protect your mental and physical health.

One of the better-known benefits of volunteering is the ____ on the community. Unpaid volunteers are often the glue（胶水） that holds a community together. Volunteering allows you to ____ your community and make it a better place.

One of the best ______ to make new friends and strengthen existing relationships is to _____ to a shared activity together. Volunteering is a great way to meet new people, _____ if you are  new to an area. Volunteering also strengthens your ____ to the community and broadens your support network, ___ you to people with common interests, neighbourhood resources, and fun and fulfilling activities.

 ___ some people are naturally outgoing,others are _____ and have a hard time meeting new people. Volunteering gives you the _____ to practise and develop your social skills, since you are meeting regularly with a group of people with _____ interests. Once you have motivation, it's easier to branch out and  make more friends and contacts.

Volunteering can provide a healthy boost （激励）to your self-confidence, self-esteem and life satisfaction. You are doing good for others and the community , which ______ a natural sense of accomplishment. Your ____ as a volunteer can also give you a sense of pride and identity. And the better you feel about yourself, the more ______ you are to have a positive view of your life and future goals.

 _____ the risk of depression is another important benefit of volunteering. A key ____ in depression is social isolation（孤立）. Volunteering _____ you in regular contact with others and helps you develop a solid support system, which ______ protects you against stress and depression when you' re going through challenging times.

A lot of people, who spend half their time dreaming up ways 【小题1】 (become) rich, are determined to become a millionaire. In fact, even if some of them get rich, they are not content with 【小题2】 (they) lives at all. 【小题3】, Charles Gray isn’t such 【小题4】 person. Today Charles Gray, who used to be a college professor with a huge six-bedroom house, lives in a small dormitory room 【小题5】 there is only second-hand furniture. But Charles appreciates this change. He feels happy to give 【小题6】 the lifestyle of a rich man, 【小题7】 (get) clothes or other things from charity shops.

A few years ago, Charles 【小题8】 (be) aware that there were a lot of people who were lacking in food, so he donated all his money to charity 【小题9】 (organization). In Charles’s opinion, most people never make much money and having only a little money 【小题10】 (make) one freer and happier.

   When I read a post about taking someone to the movies, I remembered something that happened a couple of years ago.

I used to drink Coca-Cola and they had a contest where there was a ___________ inside the bottle cap. You went to a website and entered the code and maybe you _________ something. I won some ___________ Cokes. But then, I won the Grand Prize！I was surprised and ___________.

The Grand Prize was free movies for a year. What that ___________ to be was that the company sent me 52 admission tickets for a local movie theatre — they _________ one movie a week was what free movies for a year _______. All of the tickets had expiration dates（失效期）later than a year from the day I _________ them. I used quite a few taking friends to see _________.

But the best thing I did with them was that I ____________ twenty-two tickets that I had left by that time, to the local Women’s Transition House. It is a place where women and their ____________ could go when they’re ______________ domestic violence or just a bad situation in general and get help to make a ______________ start.

My work team had decided we would be a charity through which we ______________ donations for that particular Christmas. I knew that the Women’s Transition House ______________ some childcare for the women ______________ they could go for job interviews and things like that.

I put those tickets in a(n) ______________ and wrote a note on the outside, asking the Women's Transition House staff to give the movie tickets to women there ____________ the holidays to have something ____________ to do, with or without their children. It made me ____________ happy to do this.

   In the United States a voluntary organization called Musician Corps is making a difference in people's lives. Five years ago，Kiff Gallagher，the founder of the organization，realized that music and public services could be used together to help Americans in need. Recognizing that music has a positive effect on Alzheimer's disease and autism（自闭症），he had the idea of creating Musician Corps.

Musician Corps looks for musicians and trains them as teachers. Then the musicians provide these services in city schools，children's hospitals，and assisted-living homes for older adults. They also help organize community concerts. Anyone can play music at these community activities.

Kiff Gallagher says what makes Musician Corps different from other charity organizations is that everybody can take part. It provides a place for people to get involved. He remembers a Musician Corps event at a hospital. Afterwards，he says，the patients are less depressed.

David Meletiche, one of 200 musicians in Musician Corps, teaches an after-school guitar class in a high-crime neighborhood. He is excited that the group gives him not only a job in a difficult economy but also the chance to use the team-building skills he gained in college.

There are 12 high school students in his class. Selena Makwan, one of them who are learning to play the guitar, says the program keeps her busy.“It definitely keeps me off the streets, because without this program I probably would be wandering around right now and I would not know what to do. And it also gives me an opportunity to learn something I've never done before.”

Musician Corps has established programs in California and North Carolina. Kiff Gallagher hopes Musician Corps will continue to expand across America.

   Andrew Carnegie once said，"No man can become rich without himself enriching others. The man who dies rich dies disgraced." Many successful businessmen think about sharing and giving back to their community at some point in their lives，and take part in philanthropy（慈善行为）.Some say it is out of generosity，and others believe that it is for tax reasons. One way or another，the money spent for charitable purposes is needed and has some type of impact on someone's life. The following businessmen believe that sharing is caring. They have donated（捐赠）a combined amount of $ 106.8 billion according to research firm Wealth-X.

German Dietmar Hopp co-founded SAP AG，the famous software company. Through his foundation called Dietmar-Hopp-Stiftung，he donated a total of $1 billion to support local education，sports，and health causes in his hometown in Germany. He is worth $ 6.3 billion.

Pierre Omidyar，the French-born Iranian- American businessman is the founder of eBay. In 1998，he started the Omidyar Foundation with his wife. The organization donates to several areas，food，technology and energy etc. In 2015，Omidyar reportedly donated $ 270 million worth of his eBay shares to undisclosed（未公开的）charity. So far，he has given away $ 1 billion or so.

The chairman and CEO of the computer manufacturer，Dell，likes to support education，social and human services，the arts and culture，and community development causes. According to Wealth-X，his lifetime donations are about $ 1.1 billion. His foundation promised to donate $ 25 million to build a 211-bed hospital in Austin，Texas.

James Simons is the chairman of Renaissance Technologies, a very successful firm that owns $ 65billion. With his wife Marilyn, he opened the Simons Foundation, which primarily supports educational causes. They have also opened two other organizations in memory of their two sons who died in 1996 and in 2003: the Paul Simons Foundation and the Nick Simons Foundation. Altogether, the Simons couple have made $ 1.2 billion worth of donations.