晶文薈萃 十優文章

Everyone can be a good person and do good deeds. However, does everyone do good deeds sincerely? Now, I am going to tell a little but meaningful story. The story is about a girl and a beggar.

My name is Crystal and I like helping people in need because I knew people would praise me for being helpful. They may even return me something such as candies to thank for my help. I didn't have the feeling of being wrong not until an encounter with a beggar. I have learnt from a beggar and know the meaning of being helpful.

Once there was an earthquake in Sichuan, China. The city was destroyed seriously and lots of people lost their family. Since they needed money to rebuild the city, there were lots of fund raising activities aiming to help them. I was one of the helpers in the activities. As there were not enough helpers on the street, I was sent to help the other volunteers to raise more money. I went to ask passersby to donate money to help the refugees in the earthquake. Sitting not far away from us was a vagrant, he was asking the passersby to give him money.

'We are helping the refugees, why doesn't he just get away from us? Will the passersby think that we intentionally place the fund raising station here?' I thought. So I told what I thought to one of the volunteers and asked what we could do. He said that I could try to ask the beggar to go away. As I thought it was a good idea, I went straightly to ask and told the reason to the beggar and in a calm and cold voice, I asked him to leave. He said that wasn't a problem and he slowly walked away.

A few hours later, we had raised quite a lot of money, we decided to go. While we were packing up our belongings, the beggar walked towards us. Then he took out all his money, basically all in $10 notes. He put it into the fund raising box. When I saw what he had done, questions filled up my head. I really wanted to know why he put all his money into the box, so I asked him, 'You have begged the money for a long time. Why do you put it into the box instead of buying some food for yourself?'

His answer reminded me some important thing that I have forgotten for a long time. He answered me 'Although I am a beggar, I could make a living by asking money from the passersby. It seems it is not good at all but to compare with the refugees in the earthquake, my life is better than theirs. As they are still in danger after the earthquake, they need more help than I do. So I donate all my money to help them. Although it is not much money, I just want to help.'

Hearing this, I felt guilty. Perhaps 10 dollars were not much to most of us but it was to a beggar. Then I asked him, 'then, do you have any money for yourself?'

He smiled and said, 'No, but I think skipping one or two meals is ok for me. After all, I am used to it. Don't worry. Just take the money and this is what I can do.'

His words are like a bell waking me up. I do charity work because I am expecting returns materialistically. However, a beggar renders all his wealth to help the needies.

With his words in my mind, I went home and thought his words seriously. This is the end of the story. People who do great deeds from his heart would not ask for rewards. Don't look down on small good thing because it turns out to be the most meaningful one. The beggar I encountered, to me he was doing two good things. One was donating to help victims. Another was to make a selfish girl understand the meaning of doing voluntary work. Because of him, victims have some money and the girl - me, will change the attitude. In the future, I will do the charity for the sake of charity.