In my way, love my city - remember the post-90s "senior" volunteer Zhou Guanjie

He is a young "90" post-90s, but he has been on the road of public welfare for 16 years. From an ordinary volunteer to the head of a volunteer organization with an active population of 5,000 people, volunteering has become a way of life for 16 years. He said that volunteering does not seek material rewards, but the recognition of others, the feeling of being needed, and the sense of belonging to society may be more important.

Bonding with the public good

Born in 1993, Zhou Guanjie has been following her volunteer mother, Wei Xiju, to the nursing home to care for the elderly since she was 12 years old. "When I was in my second year of junior high school in 2005, I didn't have the concept of 'volunteer' in my mind, it was called 'doing good'. My mother took me to the nursing home every week to help clean up, chat with the elderly, do what I can, and do it all day. Because he often listens to the old people telling stories, Zhou Guanjie's language expression and repetition ability has also been greatly improved. Back at school, he would tell his classmates what he had heard, and the vivid and interesting narration would often arouse great interest from his classmates, and for himself, this kind of attention also gained a simple sense of honor and pride. "With this feeling of being recognized by others, I prefer to listen to stories and tell stories, and the premise of listening to stories is to do good, so I go to the nursing home every weekend." That's why I was able to stick with it in the first place, it was simple. Zhou Guanjie smiled and said.

What impressed Zhou Guanjie the most was that he went to the nursing home with other volunteer teams for the first time, and he carefully prepared for this stage, still feeling timid and nervous. Unexpectedly, his performance won the applause of the elderly in the audience, which also gave him great confidence, and since then he has loved to participate in public welfare activities related to respecting the elderly and loving the elderly. As he participated in more and more activities, he also formed a strong family-like family relationship with the elderly. For a long time after that, pension volunteer service has also become his original intention and focus of volunteering.

"The old man and the old man." Because I know better, I am more compassionate. Zhou Guanjie has injected the vitality of young people into the field of old-age services, actively expanded the channels of volunteer activities, innovated public welfare forms, served more elderly people in need, and let more elderly people feel the warmth and care of society. From teenagers to young people, he insists on carrying out free public welfare activities for the elderly in need such as streets, communities, nursing homes, day care centers, etc. every weekend, covering 77 communities, more than 40 nursing homes, and day care centers. The total number of service visits reached more than 80,000 people, and more than 600 public welfare activities were participated in and organized. Adhering to the spirit of "respecting and loving without relatives, so that the old are not lonely", he has been rooted in the front line of respecting the elderly and loving the elderly for many years, actively docking social welfare resources, from organizing community home services such as public welfare haircuts and pedicures, to organizing large-scale literary and art evenings to comfort veterans. He also organized the establishment of the Quancheng Volunteer "Care Group Art Troupe" and "Sunset Support for the Elderly Group" to carry out public welfare condolence performances for the community, nursing homes and other units, just to bring more joy to the elderly. Today, he has cooperated with two military retreats to become a co-construction unit for long-term service.

Forge ahead on the road of public welfare

Volunteers are the sunshine that warms the society, and behind the three words "volunteer", there are both glory and dreams, as well as bitterness and helplessness. Being a volunteer means not only dedication and responsibility, but sometimes having to face questions and apathy.

"Before 2010, the biggest problem facing our group was that the management was loose, and the form of public welfare activities was spontaneous. Maybe today can pull people, tomorrow can not pull people, maybe I talked to the nursing home today to do activities on Saturday, the result in the QQ group call, not a person who signed up. Sometimes there are voices of doubt and ridicule from the outside world. After 2011, the situation has improved, and volunteer service has gradually changed from loose and spontaneous to continuous, normalized and professional, and has been separated from various forms of volunteer service teams that are inclined to help farmers, help the disabled, help students, respect for the elderly and so on. Zhou Guanjie intuitively felt the change.

There are also many things that move him on the public welfare road, an old man who has been accompanied by the family has expressed his gratitude to Zhou Guanjie and other volunteers before his death, and the children of the elderly wrote in the thank-you letter: Thank you very much for coming to chat with my mother every three to five years, my mother is old, she does not go out much, and she rarely communicates with people, and it is you who accompany her through the last beautiful time... When he saw this letter, Zhou Guanjie's eyes were moist, "No matter how much honor I give, it is not as touching as the old man when he said thank you." ”

As a volunteer born and raised in Jinan, Zhou Guanjie has witnessed the development and changes of Jinan's 16 years of public welfare activities, and has also proved with personal experience that volunteers do not rely on more money or enthusiasm, but on personally participating in every volunteer activity, motivating themselves and allowing more people to join the volunteer team.

"In my opinion, there are two kinds of volunteers, the first is called a 'one-time' volunteer, he may need to volunteer for various reasons, he is purposeful to do this, when his purpose is reached he will leave and will not do it again." The second is what we call a formal volunteer, volunteer is to send warmth to others, or to contribute to society, to help others but also to be happy with themselves. What Zhou Guanjie hopes to see is that through his years of insisting on volunteering, he can subtly influence those who initially transition from the "utilitarian heart" who simply completes the task and prays for the praise of others to the "public welfare heart" that helps others from the heart and nurtures his own soul, because he believes that the beneficiaries of the public welfare heart are ultimately ourselves.

Now Zhou Guanjie's positioning of himself is from "volunteer" to "public welfare person". "The 'volunteer' I understand is 'passive' in providing services, only to provide services within their capabilities. However, from the perspective of the 'public welfare person', he can see the changes in society, he can find the bad points of society, and check and fill in the gaps, which can contribute to the better development of society. ”

"Doing public welfare can make me understand the suffering of the world, so I will cherish the people around me more and show kindness to people in society." Those who love to go out love to return, and those who are blessed to come are blessed. You hope that when you give kindness to others, others can also reciprocate your kindness, you hope that everywhere you go, others will smile at you, and what you hope is that when you are doing good, others are more supportive and helpful to you, rather than watching from the sidelines and shouting for you. Zhou Guanjie said that the road of public welfare is very long and needs us to walk slowly.