Since the city-wide lockdown was implemented in Shanghai in early April and the conventional market supply system came to a sudden halt, the "group purchases for communities" has become an important means for Shanghai citizens to secure their supplies. Being a “group leader” requires not only intelligence and sufficient energy but also a strong sense of responsibility. Only those “group leaders” may understand what their job means.

It so happened that Hanxiao Cai, an 11th grader of Shanghai Hongrun Boyuan School (SHBS), was honored to take on the responsibility of a “group leader” by helping 135 households living in his own community find reliable suppliers of groceries and organizing group purchases so that their daily supplies are secured.

“Knowing that I was only 17 years old, my neighbors called me the youngest 'group leader' in Shanghai." On April 23, like other teenagers who like to record their experiences and thoughts on Bilibili, an app for popular videos, Hanxiao posted his experience and thoughts of acting as a “group leader” on the app. Unexpectedly, his video quickly caught the eyes of the audience. By the time this article was published, his video had been played and watched nearly 280,000 times.

Many netizens praised him for being so calm at such a young age, for his strong communications skills, excellent organizational skills, and for his strong sense of responsibility.  We were very proud of him when we learned that he took on the responsibility of the “group leader" of his community. However, we were not surprised because he had fully demonstrated his leadership and responsibility in daily activities on campus.  

Cai is currently an 11th grader and the president of SHBS student union (in his second consecutive term). He not only excels morally and academically, but also has contributed a lot to the development of our school.

The SHBS Student Union plays an important role in working together to promote the development of the school, which is advocated by our school.  As the president of the Student Union, Cai, leading his team, has taken the initiative to make many innovations, such as creating an online feedback system for school activities and daily campus life so that the Student Union can regularly collect feedback and suggestions from students, and creating the Beichen Forum, a platform for teachers and students to "discuss campus politics" once a semester. With this forum, all students can present their proposals about school development on the stage in front of all teachers and students, answer everyone's questions and open debates. The proposals passed by the forum will be implemented by the school.  In this way, not only has the Student Union become more efficient and productive, but also more students have been truly motivated to participate in the community development.  

We are very proud to have such an outstanding student like Cai, and we are very grateful for his contributions to the development of our school. We are also very grateful to all the students who have worked together with us to promote the development of our school. After getting to know him better, I believe you will agree with me that it is both accidental and natural that he should become the youngest "group leader” during this unusual period of time. 

After CAI's video accidentally caught on, his story was reported by Xinmin Evening News, thepaper.cn, WOW School Fengyunlu and other media and organizations.  Let's take a look at his story of being a “group leader”.  (The following are excerpts from the reports published by the above three media or organizations)  

I am attending a high school located in Zhujiajiao and rent an apartment near the school. I didn’t choose to go back home before the lockdown started because I thought it would last for only a couple of days, so I stored in my refrigerator enough foods to last about 3 days. I hadn’t expected that the lockdown would last over a month. In addition, I don’t have the habit of storing food. Later, I really ran out of food supply, so I just asked in the community covid-test WeChat group if they needed to buy groceries as a group.

When I read about the list of groceries suppliers of Qingpu district, some of which were close to our neighborhood, I set up a WeChat group with only a few more than 10 members. After we managed to scrape together 30 packages of groceries, the minimum required by those suppliers, I called them but was told that we couldn’t buy them.  The customer service staff explained that they must make sure that the people in their own town got food supplies first for the moment, and couldn’t deliver groceries to other towns. Actually, I felt rather frustrated by the failure at my first attempt to purchase foods for my group.

One day later, as more neighbors joined the WeChat group and its number of members increased to around 80, we began to place a large number of orders. If neighbors ran out of groceries, we scraped together about 80 packages by building up a sequence in the WeChat group. Then I placed our orders with a supplier in Zhujiajiao. After the negotiation, I paid the deposit that night, and the supplies were delivered the next day.       

To be honest, group purchase affected my studies a little at first. The responsibilities of a group leader involve finding reliable suppliers based on people’s demands, calling suppliers to make reservations, waiting for their calls for delivery, waiting at the gate of our neighborhood upon receiving the call, and then asking volunteers and security guards to  sterilize and distribute them. Time consuming as the whole process was, I gradually got used to it.

I spent nearly 4 hours per day on the first few purchases by building up a sequence in the WeChat group, and found that it cost too much time and I had to keep a close watch on my phone so as not to miss one message. Later, with the mini app for group purchase, I was set free: People paid for their orders in advance until there were enough orders for the group purchase. Then I paid all their money to the supplier. Thus, the time spent on the whole process was greatly cut down to 1.5 hours.

Now what I do every day is attending classes and doing homework, and after doing my homework, I do the group purchase to help meet the basic needs of people in my neighborhood. Everyone says it is a tough job for me. However, I don’t feel it tough at all. Instead, I feel happy, excited, and satisfied because being a group leader is totally different from being a student union president.

In April, when I acted as the group leader, I helped residents buy thousands of pounds of vegetables, fruits, meat, flour, and other daily necessities.  In addition, I also bought 100 protective suits through a neighborhood crowdfunding campaign, which was quickly and widely supported.  At that time, security guards and volunteers were short of those suits. The group purchase was a great success, and I was deeply touched by this strong love in our neighborhood.

By the end of April, the property management company of Cai's neighborhood had managed to find suppliers for the residents, so Cai retired from the group leader with heavy responsibilities to an assistant, who organized group purchase only when neighbors needed milk.

This is the story of Hanxiao Cai, 17-year-old " group leader"  in Shanghai. "If the teenagers are strong, their country will be strong."  His story has shown us the power of the post-00s generation, who are shining and promising. What kind of stories do you want to create together?