Rome had the Forum. London has Speaker’s Corner. Now New Yorkers have Liz and Bill.

Liz and Bill, two college graduates in their early 20s, have spent a whole year trying to have thousands of people talk to them in subway stations and on busy street corners. And just talk.

Using a 2-foot-tall sign that says “Talk to Me”, they attract conversationalists（健谈的人）, who one evening included a psychotic, and men in business suits.

They don’t collect money. They don’t push religion. So what’s the point?

“To see what happens,” said Liz. “We simply enjoy life with open talks.”

Shortly after the September 11 attacks, they decided to walk from New York City to Washington, a 270-mile trip. They found they loved talking to people along the way and wanted to continue talking with strangers after their return.

“It started as a crazy idea,” Liz said. “We were so curious about all the strangers walking by with their life stories. People will talk to us about anything: their jobs, their clothes, their childhood experiences, anything.”

Denise wanted to talk about an exam she was about to take. She stopped by for the second time in two days, to let the two listeners know how it went.

Marcia had led her husband to catch a serious disease. “That was very heavy on my mind,” Marcia said. “To be able to talk about it to total strangers was very good,” she explained.

To celebrate a year of talking, the two held a get-together in a city park for all the people they had met over the past year. A few hundred people appeared, as well as some television cameramen and reporters.

They will plan more parties or try to attract more people to join in their informal talks. Some publishers have expressed interest in a book, something the two say they’ll consider before making a decision.

Getting around the city when you are six months pregnant and have a two-year-old girl can be really challenging. One spring afternoon，we went to one of the grocery 【小题1】（store）nearby to buy some food for dinner. There was no sign of rain，and the store was just around the corner，【小题2】 we went there without an umbrella. However，we were about 【小题3】（leave）the store when the rain came in full force. It seemed that the streets would be flooded 【小题4】 water within minutes.

I noticed a young Chinese couple staring at 【小题5】（we）when we came to a crossroad and were waiting for the light to change. I figured they were 【小题6】（probable）wondering why a pregnant foreigner was dragging her little kid out through the rain. But as we crossed the street，【小题7】 woman offered me her umbrella. I told her I couldn't take it because it was clearly starting to storm. She insisted and handed it to me as she 【小题8】（hurry）off with her husband.

Though 【小题9】（catch）in the rain unexpectedly，we still treasured the memory and will always recall the 【小题10】（warm）and kindness of the Chinese couple.

   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.

   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.

   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.