Helping kids“heal”

广西浦北县第二中学 钟冬梅

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难词探意

1.sort/sɔːt/v.将……分类

2.corral/kə'raːl/v.聚集

3.unveil/,ʌn'veɪl/v.（首次）展示；推出

4.trustee/trʌ'stiː/n.受托人

When a tornado hit the small town of Otwell,Indiana,Kathryn Martin,32,who lived 60 miles away in Evansville,couldn't get the news of it out of her mind.“I kept thinking those poor people.Somebody's got to help them,”she said.She knew firsthand what they were going through.

Six months earlier,in the middle of the night on November 6,2005,a tornado had struck her town,taking the lives of her 2-year-old son,her mother-in-law and her grandmother-in-law.The three had been having a sleepover at her grandmother-in-law's mobile home.Kathryn,her three other children and her husband survived. “It is the most terrible experience of my life,” she said. “That pain will never go away,and it broke my heart to think about what these other families were going through in Otwell,especially the children.”

So Kathryn loaded her car with juice boxes,snacks and toys and drove to Otwell.She dropped off the items with the Red Cross,and as she was leaving,she saw a couplesortingthrough the wreckage of their home while their children watched.Kathryn had a few toys left,so she stopped and offered to play with the kids for a while. “The parents were so grateful that I did that for their children,” she said.

On the drive back to Evansville,Kathryn came up with an idea to help more kids.Shecorralledfamily members,friends and neighbors and spent the next few months organizing home-grown fund-raisers.Finally,in August 2007,sheunveiledC.J.'s Bus,a 35-foot school bus-turned mobile playroom.Stocked with bins of video games and DVDs,toys,crafts,books and much more,the bus travels to disaster-torn towns,giving the children there a safe place to play while their parents clean up,tend to paperwork or simply take a break.To Kathryn and her team of 39 volunteers,it's just keeping it normal for kids.So far,C.J.'s Bus has traveled to three states affected by tornadoes or floods,cheering up more than 756 children from 3 to 13 years old.Exhausting as it is running the bus in addition to working full-time as a townshiptrustee,it's what Kathryn feels she was meant to do.“On our third day in Earle,Arkansas,after a tornado there,a little boy asked where I live,” she said.“When I told him Indiana,he couldn't believe I'd come all that way to help his family.”

Reading Check

1.When did the tornado hit Otwell?

A.In January. B.In March.

C.In May. D.In November.

2.What were the couple grateful for according to paragraph 3?

A.The author's playing with their children.

B.The author's free snacks for their family.

C.The author's cleaning up their home.

D.The author's financial help for their family.

3.What is the C.J.'s Bus used as?

A.An ambulance. B.A playroom.

C.A method of travel. D.A storage room of tools.

Language Study

Sentence for writing

I kept thinking those poor people.我一直想着那些受灾的人。

【信息提取】keep doing sth意为“一直做某事”。

【句式仿写】尽管下雨，我们还是一直在田里干活儿。