Chen Wenchang remembers her days volunteering at the 2010 Asian Games as hard work, but fun.

A student at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, she stood almost 10 hours a day in a subway station, helping to direct Chinese and foreign visitors to the event, which was held in Guangzhou in November.

"I felt very tired, but it is a good memory," the 21-year-old said. "Helping others has given me a lot of inspiration for my studies. It is in giving that we receive."

The 2010 Asiad, the largest international event ever hosted by the city, won wide applause, not only the athletes' performances but also for the service provided by some 600,000 registered volunteers, mostly college students, said Wei Guohua, director of the Communist Youth League's Guangzhou committee.

Now, this southern metropolis plans to recruit at least 2 million volunteers in the next three to five years, according to a city government notice released on Monday, the annual International Volunteers Day.

"It means up to 20 percent of the city's population, from all walks of life, will be involved in volunteer work," Wei said.

The city has roughly 1.3 million registered volunteers under the management of local associations.

Zhao Guangjun, another volunteer at the Asiad, has welcomed the move to encourage broader social participation.

"The proportion of the city's population involved in volunteering is still small compared with the 26 percent in most cities in the United States," he said. "A growing number of people from different sections of society will help bring us closer to that number."

Before the games, Zhao was honored as a "national moral model" for spending thousands of hours and almost all of his 130,000 yuan ($20,400) in savings on volunteering activities.

To encourage more people to get involved, the notice states that the city government will reward job seekers with excellent volunteer records by introducing "preferential policies", although it did not elaborate on how this will work.

All volunteer stations used during the Guangzhou Asiad will be manned from March 5 next year, the city's first Volunteer Service Day, the notice added.