Toy Recycling Volunteer

Aug.15th, 2026

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Today, I visited one of Shanghai’s most famous charity stores --- Buy 42, and became one of its volunteers. Although I have volunteered in a lot of other public places, this is my first time to volunteer at a store. At my first glance, I understood that buy 42 means buy for you and for someone special.

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At Buy 42, I helped collect and categorize merchandise, communicate with foreign customers, and sell the products to different customers. Understanding that each product is donated by businesses and person or made by people with disabilities, I realized the weight and value of teh store.

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During my one-day volunteering work, I found that the most interesting thing was serving the customers. When handling a cup of rock tea from Wuyi Mountain in Fujian, and introducing the history and geographic background of this special Chinese traditional tea visitors, I felt proud of myself demonstrating products. It also made me gain a more profound insight in Chinese tea culture. Despite the fact that I didn’t sell out a lot of tea leaves, I obtained the sense of achievement through expressing confidently.

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Additionally, I also led the younger volunteers to play a unique environmentally friendly and commonweal board game from Buy 42 in the afternoon. Even though forty minutes are long, that 40-minute-long playing time seemed really fast to me. I realized that the time which you pay effort and immerse in the activity was rapid but meaningful.

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Finally, walking out of the charity store, I saw the slogan again: You could change the world by stepping in. Today’s experience dramatically changed my point of view of doing commonweal stuffs. It isn’t just about money, it could be related to love, communication, and friendship.