Points mean prizes for city's volunteers
A one-month campaign to award active volunteers was launched on Tuesday, International Volunteer Day, in downtown Jing'an District.
The district's civilization office worked with Japanese retailer Muji to design various gifts, such as pen, bag and card holder, for volunteers to redeem with points collected based on their service hours registered on the "Shanghai Volunteer" WeChat mini program.
"I never expected to get paid for my volunteer work, but it's really a big surprise," said Ye Lei, a worker with the Shibei Power Supply Company.
His service time has accumulated to 1,067 hours. "I feel very encouraged. I will continue to contribute to volunteer work," he said.
This year, the office has financially aided 24 volunteer projects, such as caring for people with disabilities and helping the underprivileged to get work.