讀書筆記
讀書心得
I read the articles “ Heroes Of The Holidays” on “Reader’s Digest” December 2024/January 2025. Ruth gave me the magazine.
A)
(1) Actually, Do Meet Your Heroes 。
Friends Yuri Williams and Rodney Smith Jr. spend the weeks leading up to Christmas crisscrossing the country. They visit all 50 states, making house calls to kids who are sick or disabled. The pair arrive with plenty of toys, and in costume, both of which delight the young recipients. In past years, Williams has dressed up as various superheroes and other beloved charactersincluding Spider-Man, Deadpool and the Mandalorian-while Smith dons the attire of a Christmas elf.
“He was the first person to put a smile on AJ's face," says Katrina Morris about her son, who was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 2.
Along the way, they stock up on toys, funded by the donations that come through the Future SuperHero website, which is also where people nominate families for the pair to visit. Even more important than the gifts they bring, Williams and Smith spend time with the people who need it the most-and that's not just the children.
(2）To Utah kids.
Nancy Daybell of Heber City, Utah, grows and sells flowers.
It all started three years ago, when Daybell decided to convert the cash box she used for her flower sales into a mailbox. She decked it out with festive decorations and advertised its unique postal route (direct to the North Pole) with a sign out front.
Daybell received dozens of what she called “the most adorable letters.”
She writes back to every child. Her standard reply: “Santa has great things planned that will make you smile on Christmas morning.”
(3) In the (St.) Nick of Time.
A woman named Cindy had just climbed into her car when a young woman approached, introducing herself as Emily Kennedy, a meteorologist with ABC57 News.
“l’m looking for someone who might know somebody that could use a miracle,” Kennedy said.
Cindy remembered a Facebook post about a man, whose house had burned just before the holiday. She’d never met the family, she said.
“If we’re able to get [to the family] in 57 minutes, we get to give them $570,” Kennedy nudged.
The race was on. Kennedy started her timer. At last they found the place, a white house. They knocked, a teenage boy opened the door “My brother is at work,” he said. the timer read 41 minutes.
They burst through the door of the facility. The timer passed 55 minutes. A figure appeared. It was Mark. Kennedy awarded him the money.
The channel’s 57- minute miracles launched in 2014 and has become a staple of the holiday season.
(4)To Holocaust Survivors
Tens of thousands of survivors live in New York City, and with little income. These seniors can’t afford to celebrate Thanksgiving and Hanukkah with family—or food. Enter Met Council, New York’s largest kosher food pantry network. The nonprofit, which provides 20 million pounds of food throughout the year, goes into overdrive during the holidays.
(5) One Man’s Trash...
Last Christmas Eve, Devitt Kane and Eric Ramey, two highway maintenance crewmen with WSDOT, spotted a busted trash bag on the shoulder of highway.
The bag’s contents stunned the veterans. Inside were tennis shoes and toys.
The two made a Facebook post . Around 9p.m.,WSDOT’s Made Voie got a call. Mary Fenner had posted on Facebook that her brother David Carlile had lost a trash bag full of kid’s Christmas gifts.
They gave Voie’s phone number to Carlile , and the two met up just after midnight on Christmas morning.
Carlile drive back to his grandkids and rewrap the items before they woke up.
(6) To Philly Seniors
Patricia Gallagher was a lonely empty nester in 2009 when she got the impulse to visit some nursing homes for Christmas.
“I brought the stuffed animals with me,” Gallagher told CBS. She put an ad on Craigslist asking for gentle used stuffed animals. Donations tumbled in.
Gallagher takes the donations not just to senior living facilities, but also to homes for veterans and retired nuns.
She says “It reminded them of when they were a kid.”
(7) On the Side of the Angels
At Blessed Angels Community Center in San Antonio, the emergency food pantry has been providing low-income city residents with essential groceries for the past 10 years.
where older adults can get a hot lunch for no charge, play a game of bingo or take a free exercise class.
As the holidays approach,Blessed Angels takes things up a notch, says its CEO , Marion Thomas.
In December 2023. When two employees went to the strip mall’s back parking lot to start loading up the delivery vehicles, they were shocked— thieves had broken through the locked gate and wreaked havoc.
Thomas made a quick post to Blessed Angels’ Facebook page, asking for prayers.That evening, Thomas got a call from Kathryn Brown. “Don’t worry,” Brown reassured her. “We’ve got your back.”
By early Tuesday morning, five of the constable’s deputies were at Blessed Angels, parking the groceries into their cruisers. Then they hit the road, knocking out all the deliveries in record time and bringing holiday joy to the recipients in the process.
(8) Special Delivery
As Nicole and Nathan Parrett drove their family of five back home to Fargo, North Dakota, after visiting family In Texas in December 2022, they had two tearful toddlers in the back.
Why? Well, during the visit, they had fallen in love with a stray dog. So when it was time to leave , the waterworks flowed.
Their Grandpa Mike was cooking up a Christmas plan. Mike decided to surprise his grandkids on Christmas morning by driving Country more than 1,200 miles from Texas to North Dakota.
（B) I think: The eight stories mentions that on Christmas Eve, many people do good deeds. Indeed, I live in a senior apartment. Every year before Christmas, each family receives a questionnaire asking what they need, and then one day someone delivers a gift to their doorstep. This was done by an organization called The Christmas gala.
Giant Supermarket gives us free bread and cakes every Friday. We elders also help each other in our daily lives. A few days ago, I saw on the Internet that a rich American Warren Buffett donated 6 billion US dollars to fight world hunger.
My granddaughter was praised for helping a lower-grade student with ADHD when she was in high school.
In China, the Communist Party emphasizes class struggle and promotes hatred. Many people were persecuted to death in previous political movements.
