Gao Defu is a student in a small village in Guizhou. He used to go hungry or have only a little food for lunch at noon. But now, Gao and his classmates have better food and vegetable dishes for free every day because of the Free Lunch Program.
The program was started by Deng Fei, a reporter at the Phoenix Weekly (《凤凰周刊》). Early this year, Deng met Gao Defu's teacher Xiao Yu. Xiao Yu told Deng Fei that lots of students in her school didn't have lunch to eat, when they felt hungry, they even drink water to lessen their hunger.
Deeply shocked, Deng decided to do something for the kids in the poor areas. He posted a message on his microblog (微博) saying he wanted to build a canteen (食堂) at Xiao's school. The message soon got the support of thousands of people around the country. With their help, the Free Lunch Program finally set up.
Now more and more volunteers took part in this program. One lunch for one child cost 3 yuan in the poor areas. People can donate (捐赠) for a meal, a month's worth of meals, or a year's worth of meals for children on the Internet. In half a year, the program has raised more than 1,600,000 yuan, providing (提供) free lunches for poor students in 77 schools.
If everyone helps out a bit, we'll have a better world to live in. This is the true meaning of volunteering.
