A blog posted Dec 7, 2018 at 12:17 PM by Alanna Mallon Alanna Mallon is a Cambridge City Councilor.

Each year in November, I receive a lot of emails and texts from friends who want to volunteer with their families on Thanksgiving as a way to give back. I also field phone calls from organizations who want to donate ( 捐赠 ) to local programs that provide Thanksgiving meals.

However, as an official who still works in the nonprofit sector (非盈利部门), I also feel deeply anxious (焦急的) because I know the other 51 weeks of the year, these key programs that provide food to residents (居民) in need are eager for both volunteers and donations. Hunger is a year round problem, and each week volunteers are the necessary part to make sure that programs are able to serve the community.

At Food For Free, we depend on about 100 volunteers per week, and each of those volunteers is extremely important to providing fresh, healthy food to people in the Greater Boston area who need it. School children who take backpacks of food home on Fridays, community college students who depend on our Family Meals program to support their healthy growth, elderly and disabled residents who receive twice monthly deliveries of food to their doors through our Home Delivery program, they all depend on us making sure enough volunteers show up to do the work.

These volunteers don't show up in your social media system, they don't win prizes and no one writes about them in the local newspapers. But they are heroes. And you can be too. If everyone made a promise to volunteer once a month, or even once a quarter, I know that we could reduce some of the anxiety these organizations feel, as a more trust-worthy volunteer network allows them to focus on helping people, not filling volunteer positions.

Here is a list of a few organizations who are doing important work in Cambridge to make sure the food to be safe. Offer your time to an organization, they will be deeply grateful, and I am quite sure that you will feel pretty good about yourself too.

 

Food For Free: http://foodforfree.org/volunteer.

CEOC: http://ceoccambridge.org/food-pantry.
Harvard Square Homeless Shelter: https://hshshelter.org/volunteer.
Community Cooks: https://communitycooks.org/join-us.
Margaret Fuller Neighborhood House: http://margaretfullerhouse.org

 

 

 

 
【小题1】The word "field" in paragraph 1 probably means "________".

A．make

B．keep

C．deal with

D．take away

【小题2】What can we learn from the first two paragraphs?

A．The food safety worries the writer.	B．Volunteers are needed all year round.
C．Donations can be made through the Internet.	D．People like getting together on Thanksgiving.

【小题3】The third paragraph is mainly about ________.

A．the duty of Food For Free	B．the donations of Family Meals
C．the value of voluntary work	D．the difficult life of local people

【小题4】What's the main purpose of this passage?

A．To call for action.	B．To express thanks.
C．To advertise programs.	D．To introduce websites.