大学生过节做义工

Wang Yuanyuan

Many university students celebrated this year's Spring Festival by doing volunteer work, the city's Communist Youth League said Sunday.

Many of the students volunteered at the city's 58 U Stations, while others served residents and visitors at tourism attractions, railway stations and social welfare centers.

"More than 3,000 volunteers have worked at the U Stations during the seven-day holiday and nearly half of them were students staying in Shenzhen over festival," said Zhang Zhihua, head of the league.

Most of the students attend Shenzhen University, Shenzhen Polytechnic or Shenzhen Institute of Information Technology.

"They mainly provided information to visitors and helped assist traffic. Many of them just worked hard at the railway station to help festival travelers before the festival," Zhang said.

"I have spent most of my Spring Festivals in Shenzhen with my family in the past years and this year I wanted to do something special, so I applied to volunteer at a U Station," said Yang Junling, a senior at Shenzhen University. "Although it was hard work and I had no time to relax with my friends and family, I did learn a lot and I gained a great deal of social experience."

According to the Communist Youth League, more than 500 volunteers served at the U Stations and other venues every day of the festival, giving out more than 10,000 copies of free handbooks -- such as travel guides and Metro guides -- and nearly 1,000 free movie tickets. Many volunteers also served at the city's main traffic hubs and intersections.

"More and more people now choose to do something meaningful to repay society on special occasions such as the Spring Festival. There were university students and big families with parents and children," Zhang said. "We had received a lot of applications before the Spring Festival and had to turn down many residents because we did not have enough positions for them."