是什么激励着全国各地的志愿者，尤其是在这个感恩节

感恩节快乐。

Happy Thanksgiving.

在这个节日里，我们做了一些与众不同的事情。

On this holiday, we are doing something a little different.

我们花些时间谈谈美国人做的志愿者工作。

We are taking some time to talk about the volunteer work Americans do.

过去六个月里，我们一直在'来帮忙'系列中报道服务和社区的故事。

For the past six months, we have been featuring stories of service and community in a series called Here to Help.

比如76岁的杰拉德·范德沃肯的故事，他是奥斯汀仁人家园的志愿者。

Stories of people like 76 year old Gerard Van Der Werken, a volunteer with Habitat for Humanity Austin.

他热爱这份工作。

He loves the work.

他今年完成了第五十次房屋建造。

He did his fiftieth build this year.

他说最喜欢的时刻就是和其他志愿者把钥匙交给即将入住新房的家庭时。

He says his favorite part is when he and other volunteers turn over the keys to the family who will be living in their new home.

有人叫我爱哭鬼。

I was called a crier.

每次我发表献词时都会落泪，因为大多数人不知道我也曾是一名移民。

Every dedication I speak and I shed tears because what most people didn't realize that I was an immigrant too.

我在很多很多年前来到美国。

I came to America many, many years ago.

我出生在印度尼西亚的雅加达。

I was born in Jakarta, Indonesia.

我基本上已经美国化了，但当初能来美国，是因为有人伸出援手帮助我们来到这里。

I'm basically Americanized, but to come to America at that time, there was a helping hand to get us here.

所以我非常感激那只伸出的援手。

And so I was very appreciative of that extending hand.

因此我也愿意回馈社会。

So I was willing to give back.

看到这个世界上真的有人明白'人生路上离不开他人援手'这个道理，这让我非常感动。

And so it just moves me to see that there are people in this world that really understands that you can't get through life without a helping hand.

今年早些时候，我们还听到了李·库珀的故事。

Earlier this year, we also heard from Lee Cooper.

库珀在'缅因需求'组织做志愿者，该组织为有需要的人提供衣物。他为素未谋面的人们整理购物袋装衣物，其中包括一些正在戒瘾的人。

Cooper volunteers at Maine Needs, a group that provides clothing for people in need where he puts together shopping bags of clothes for people he will never meet, including some recovering from addiction.

我深知戒瘾初期的感受。

I know what it's like in early sobriety.

我已经保持清醒三十三年了。

I've been sober for thirty three years.

我尽我所能为她准备了最好的打包服务。

I did the best packing job I could for her.

我特意挑选了最漂亮、最新的衣物，还给了她一个'妈妈礼包'——这是我们为母亲们准备的常规礼包，里面有精致的香皂，有时还会放把梳子。

Tried to pick the prettiest, the newest, I mean, and then I gave her a minute for mom kit, which is a kit we do for moms as a rule, has fancy soap and sometimes a hairbrush.

我给她写了张纸条，上面只写着：'祝你在戒瘾路上好运。'

And I wrote her a note that just said, good luck in your sobriety.

想想看，志愿服务的益处对许多人而言尤为明显，尤其是在感恩节这一周。

Consider this, the benefits of volunteering stand out to many people, especially during Thanksgiving week.

这里是NPR，我是斯科特·特拉。

From NPR, I'm Scott Tetra.

NPR的《思考一下》节目。

It's consider this from NPR.

在这个感恩的日子里，我们特别想感谢您——我们的听众朋友们，数月来持续分享着你们通过志愿服务帮助他人的故事。

On a day of giving thanks, we wanted to thank you, our listeners, who have for months been sharing stories about how you help others through volunteering.

你们也讲述了社区中那些无私奉献、回馈社会的身边人的事迹。

You've also shared stories about others in your community who spend their time giving back.

我们已收到来自全国各地的数百份反馈。

We have received hundreds of responses from all across the country.

你们提名了义务图书管理员和童子军领队。

You nominated volunteer librarians and scout leaders.

你们分享了在食品救济站、市政委员会甚至社区堆肥小组担任志愿者的经历。

You told us stories of volunteering in food pantries and municipal boards, even community compost groups.

以下是其中几个典型案例。

Here are just a few examples of those.

詹姆斯和希拉里·康威尔是一对夫妇，35年来他们一直作为中世纪重演志愿者走进中学课堂。

James and Hillary Cornwell are a married couple who have volunteered as medieval reenactors in middle school classrooms for thirty five years.

别担心。

Don't worry.

他们有盔甲。

They've got armor.

我们带来真正的金属和皮革盔甲部件让孩子们试穿。

We bring real metal and leather pieces of armor for kids to try on.

虽然是复制品，但这些部件的耐用性标准与几个世纪前真正的盔甲制作标准相同。

And while they're replicas, the pieces have been built to the same standards of durability that the real ones were made for centuries ago.

我和妻子是在90年代初刚成为情侣时开始从事这项志愿工作的。

My wife and I got into this line of volunteer work when we had just gotten together as a couple in the early nineteen nineties.

我们二十多岁时就开始走访中学课堂。

We were in our twenties when we started visiting middle school classrooms.

现在我们所有人的年纪都足以当七年级学生的祖父母了。

Now all of us are old enough to be the seventh grader's grandparents.

在教室里做志愿者并与孩子们保持联系让我们感到充实，尤其是现在我们的孩子都已长大成人。

Well, there's a sense of fulfillment in volunteering in classrooms and in keeping connected with kids now that our own children are grown.

部分动机是出于私心，这些学生让我们保持思维敏锐。

Some of the motivation is selfish, and the students keep us sharp.

杰克·塞尔是旧金山战争纪念歌剧院的专业引座员。

Jake Sale is a professional usher at San Francisco's War Memorial Opera House.

他打电话来提名那些在演出期间与他一起工作的志愿者。

He called us to nominate the people who volunteered to work with him during performances.

他们所做之事有一种安静的尊严：微笑着迎接初次观看歌剧的观众，引导迷路的听众穿过华丽的走廊，站立数小时只为确保他人拥有美好的夜晚。

There's a quiet dignity in what they do, greeting first time opera goers with a smile, guiding lost audience members through ornate hallways, standing for hours just to make sure somebody else has a beautiful night.

与他们共事改变了我对服务的看法。

Working alongside them has changed the way I think about service.

服务并不总是需要宏大的举动。

It's not always about grand gestures.

而是那些细微而坚定的行为。

It's small acts of steadiness.

艾伦·史密斯·希克斯提名了他来自新罕布什尔州曼彻斯特的母亲桑德拉·希克斯，她于2020年去世。

Alan Smith Hicks nominated his mother, Sandra Hicks, from Manchester, New Hampshire, who passed away in 2020.

她是我认识的最勤奋的退休人士。

She was the hardest working retired person I've ever known.

上世纪七十年代时，她就已经法定失明了。

In the nineteen seventies, she was legally blind.

但近五十年来，她毕生致力于志愿服务、社会活动、权益倡导、社区教育和社会正义事业。

But for almost fifty years, she dedicated her life to volunteerism, activism, advocacy, community education, and social justice.

感恩节周是全美志愿服务最活跃的时段之一，因此我们想实地探访华盛顿地区的一项志愿活动。

Thanksgiving week is one of the biggest times for volunteering across the country, so we wanted to check out one of those efforts close to us in the Washington area.

领取切达干酪的来宾请注意：A队列由女童军负责，B队列由杰克与吉尔国家海港分会负责。

For Cheddar Cheese, line a will be the Girl Scouts, and line b for Cheddar Cheese will be the Jack And Jill National Harbor.

上周六，来自当地高中、大学及传统黑人兄弟会的数百名志愿者挤满了哥伦比亚特区大学的学生活动中心。

This past Saturday, hundreds of volunteers from local high schools, colleges, and historically black Greek letter organizations packed the student center at the University of the District of Columbia.

他们的目标非常明确：要让尽可能多的人吃上饭。

They had a pretty straightforward goal, to feed as many people as possible.

所有人都抢着要和兰塞姆·米勒说话，他正在确保流水线作业没有出现任何断档。

Everyone was clamoring to speak with Ransom Miller, who was making sure there weren't any gaps in assembly line action.

我

I

东侧需要一个人，然后我们全体轮换。

want one person on Eastside, and we all rotate.

这样可以吗？

Is that good?

米勒

Miller

是非营利组织“回馈计划”的创始人和主席。

is the founder and chair of the nonprofit Project Give Back.

该组织每年举办中大西洋地区规模最大的感恩节食品分发活动之一。

It holds one of the largest annual Thanksgiving food distributions in the Mid Atlantic region.

米蒂·巴尔迪内利在“回馈计划”做志愿者已超过二十年，她还记得当年志愿者人数相对较少的时期。

Meaty Bardinelli has been volunteering with Project Give Back for more than twenty years and remembers back when things were a little bit slimmer on volunteer side.

她表示特别欣慰看到今年有这么多人参与，尤其是当政府停摆导致许多人暂停领取SNAP福利，以及该地区的联邦工作人员一个多月没领到工资的时候。

She said she's especially glad to see people getting involved this year when the government shutdown paused snap benefits for so many people and when federal workers in the region went more than a month without a paycheck.

因此我认为今年的'回馈计划'不仅今年，更持续彰显了食物与安全的重要性。

So I believe that this year's project give back continues, not just this year, continues to show the importance of food and security.

马斯洛需求层次理论首要的就是食物、衣物和住所，这是最基本的需求。

It's imperative that Maslow's hierarchy of needs starts off with food, clothing, and shelter.

如果我们连维持生存的食物都没有，那一切都无从谈起。

And so we don't have food to sustain us, then it's it's a no go.

这是根本行不通的。

It's a nonstarter.

对吧？

Right?

海军学院的在校生贾米尔·费雷尔表示，他成长过程中要什么有什么，因此他认为抓住机会帮助那些不幸的人非常重要。

Jamere Ferrer, a college student at the Naval Academy, said he had everything he could have ever wanted growing up, so it's important for him to take the opportunity to help people who are less fortunate.

他搬着一个装满食物的箱子，这些食物将帮助数千个家庭中的一个。

He carried a box full of food that will help one of thousands of families.

鸡肉、馅料、弯管通心粉、奶酪、比目鱼、胡萝卜。

Chicken, stuffing, elbow noodles, cheese, flounder, carrots.

我拿了些猪肉或类似的东西。

I grabbed some pork or something something of that nature.

他当时正听从项目负责人兰瑟姆·米勒的指示。

He was taking direction from project leader Ransom Miller.

米勒最近来到NPR工作室，讲述了'回馈计划'的起源。

Miller recently stopped by NPR studio to talk about the origins of project give back.

他回忆道，这个最初的想法是在与几位同事交谈时逐渐成形的。

He recalled how the initial idea took shape as he was talking to a few coworkers.

实际上，我们当时在餐厅里，感叹着自己作为年轻专业人士是多么幸运和受眷顾。

Actually, we were in a lunchroom, you know, lamenting over how blessed we were and how fortunate we were as young professionals.

这里就是你工作的地方吗？

This was this was your place of work?

是的。

Yeah.

这是在TCBA，一家本地会计师事务所。

So this was at TCBA, which is a local accounting firm.

嗯。

Mhmm.

只是一次午餐室的谈话，大家纷纷加入并分享他们感到多么幸运。

And just a lunchroom conversation that really people jumped into and shared how blessed they felt.

你知道，当时华盛顿特区市中心有无家可归的人群，我们刚进来时，和几个正经历困难时期的人聊了聊。

You know, there was a homeless population downtown DC at that time, and we had just come in, talked to a couple people who were going through some hard times.

那次谈话后来变成了，‘嘿，今年感恩节我们为何不为别人做点什么呢？’

And that conversation turned into, Hey, why don't we do something for somebody else this Thanksgiving?

而且，你知道，大家都支持这个想法。

And, you know, everybody was supportive of it.

那一年，我们帮助了六个家庭过感恩节。

And that year, we helped six families for Thanksgiving.

-彼得：最初，这确实是件很棒的事。是的。

-PETER: Initially, that was a great thing to Yeah.

但当时并没有我们现在这样宏大的愿景。

And But it was no big vision of what we have now.

-PETER: 只是几个同事一起。

-PETER: Just a few people at work.

是啊。

Yeah.

算是临时起意。

Kind of on the fly.

-PETER: 没错。

-PETER: Yeah.

帮助了几户家庭。

Helping a handful of families.

是的。

Yeah.

我想后来发生的是，那些人第二年又回来问：嘿，我们今年要做些什么？

And I think what happened was those same people came back the next year and say, hey, what are we doing this year?

我当时就回答，呃，我也不知道。

And I was like, well, I don't know.

你这话是什么意思？

What do you mean?

他说，哦，你知道的，就是我们那个项目啊。对。

He said, oh, you know, the project where we Yeah.

就是我们回馈社区、发放食品篮的那个项目。

Where we gave back to the community and we gave food baskets.

我当时就说，好吧

I was like, well

咱们再来一次吧。

Let's do it again.

咱们再来一次吧。

Let's do it again.

然后他问，那你们管这个活动叫什么？

And he said, well, what are you calling this thing?

而他刚刚把这些话连在一起说了。

And he had just said those words together.

所以我说，好吧，我们打算叫它'回馈计划'。

So I said, well, we're gonna call it Project Give Back.

帮助大家理解我们所说的规模有多大。

Help people understand just how big we're talking here.

比如，什么...什么是最好的

Like, what what what's the best

理解2025年这个项目规模的方式是什么？

way to understand the scope of this in 2025?

嗯，我想可能接近一千名志愿者早上五点就起床为别人打包物资。

Well, I think think maybe close to a thousand volunteers getting up some at five in the morning to pack boxes for somebody else.

我认为这是看待这件事的一个重要角度。

I think that's a big way to look at it.

因为我们是一个志愿者组织。

Because we are a volunteer organization.

没有人领取薪水。

Nobody gets paid.

我们没有任何带薪员工。

We don't have any paid staff.

我们筹集的所有资金都用于我们的项目。

All the money that we raise goes into our programming.

但我们组建了一个团队，使这一过程变得无缝衔接。

But we've assembled a team of people who have made that a seamless process.

你们每年为多少人提供食物？

How many people do you get food to each year?

去年是5000人。

Last year was 5,000.

好的。

Okay.

今年我们实际上——这有个有趣的故事。

This year we're we're actually, it's a funny story.

我11岁的儿子哈里森YOU7年帮助多少家庭？

My 11 year old son, Harrison, asked me, how many families are we helping this year?

我说大约5000。

And I said about 5,000.

他说，好吧。

So he he said, okay.

他问，那我们去年帮助了多少？

He said, well, how many did we do last year?

我回答，大约5000。

I said, about 5,000.

他说，难道你不觉得我们应该做得更多吗？

He said, well, don't you think we should do more?

我当时就愣住了，反问他什么意思

And I was like, what do you mean?

你知道，我立刻开始盘算：这意味着需要筹集更多资金，协调更多资源

You know, and immediately I started thinking, well, that's more money to raise, that's more coordination.

是啊。

Yeah.

然后我开始思考这件事，接着就听到了他的声音。

And I started thinking about it, then I just heard his voice.

他非常自信。

He was very confident.

他说，嗯，我觉得我们应该做得更多。

He's like, Well, I think we should do more.

我在想，也许是因为全国范围内对安全网的关注度提高了，在华盛顿特区，成千上万的联邦雇员有一个多月没领到薪水。

Well, I'm wondering if maybe the increased focus on the safety net that we've seen across the country, and here in DC, thousands of federal workers went more than a month without a paycheck.

我们看到SNAP福利出现了中断。

We saw we saw a disruption in in in SNAP benefits.

人们对食品援助的关注程度达到了很长时间以来未见的水平。

There's there's a real focus on on food assistance in the way that I don't think we've seen in a long time.

从你的角度来看，你如何看待这一现象？

How have you seen that from your point of view?

我认为从事这类工作，我们每年都能看到某些家庭的生活有多么艰难。

I think doing this type of work, we see every year how hard it is for certain families.

我指的是双职工家庭，他们努力工作却依然难以维持生计。

I'm talking about two parent households working, having trouble making ends meet.

这对很多人来说是个困扰，但并不令人意外，因为我们知道这个地区——可能全国范围内都存在对食品援助的迫切需求。

It's troubling to a lot of people, but it's not a surprise because we know that there's definitely a need in this area and a probably across the country, but there's a need in this area for food assistance.

但这个问题，SNAP福利和政府停摆加剧了这一困境。

But this problem, the SNAP benefits and the federal government shutdown exacerbated that problem.

我们从未接到过今年这么多的求助电话。

We have never gotten the amount of calls that we got this year.

但我认为有一种叫做'良性同侪压力'的东西。

But I think there's something called positive peer pressure.

如果你在做一件好事，而你周围的人看到后会说，也许我也应该做类似的事情。

If you're doing something that's good and your peer is looking around and saying, well, maybe I should be doing something like that.

而这正是我们希望达到的效果。

And that's what we hope to do.

我认为这是我们能够扩展的原因之一。

I think that's one of the reasons we've been able to expand.

所以我们把这个活动称为'回馈星期六'。

So we're doing this on what we call Give Back Saturday.

我们在华盛顿特区、马里兰州和弗吉尼亚州开展这项活动。

And we're doing this in Washington DC, Maryland and Virginia.

但我们也在我的家乡俄克拉荷马城进行。

But we're also doing it in Oklahoma City, which is my hometown.

我们还在印第安纳州的印第安纳波利斯开展。

We're also doing it in Indianapolis, Indiana.

你们在搞特许经营。

You're franchising it.

基本上。

Basically.

基本上。

Basically.

还有什么比服务更适合特许经营的呢

And it what what better to franchise than service

是啊。

Yeah.

还能帮助他人？

And helping other people?

这是非营利组织'回馈计划'的创始人兼主席兰塞姆·米勒，该组织已举办感恩节食品分发活动多年

That's Ransom Miller, the founder and chair of the nonprofit Project Give Back, which has held a Thanksgiving food distribution for more

已经超过三十年了。

than thirty years now.

谢谢

Thank you

非常感谢你的到来。

so much for coming in.

是的。

Yes.

感恩节快乐。

Happy Thanksgiving.

谢谢。

Thank you.

非常感谢。

Thank you very much.

正如你刚才听到的，兰塞姆·米勒创办'回馈计划'的第一年只帮助了六个家庭。

As you just heard, the first year that Ransom Miller did Project Give Back fed six families.

而今年，它为超过5700个家庭提供了食物。

This year, it provided food for more than 5,700 families.

你可以在npr.org/heretohelp全年收听更多关于服务、社区和回馈的故事。

You can hear more stories focused on service, community, and giving back year round at npr.org slash here to help.

本期节目由马特·奥佐格、杰森·富勒和贾纳基·梅塔制作。

This episode was produced by Matt Ozog, Jason Fuller, and Janaki Mehta.

由阿什莉·布朗编辑。

It was edited by Ashley Brown.

我们的执行制片人是萨米·耶尼根。

Our executive producer is Sammy Yenigan.

这里是NPR的《Consider This》节目。

It's Consider This from NPR.

我是斯科特·德特罗。

I'm Scott Detreaux.