What do you make of the quoted paragraph below?

I pulled this paragraph from an English textbook written for beginner's level (A1 according to CEFR) English learners in my country (Vietnam). The question I want to ask is: Can you understand what the paragraph is trying to say?

People are living longer so there are more elderly people. Many young people are doing community service. They help elderly people. They do their shopping. They do their housework. They clean their yards. They even paint their houses.

A friend of mine, an English teacher, suggested that the multiple instances of their in the paragraph may be source for confusion and proposed changing their to the, i.e.:

People are living longer so there are more elderly people. Many young people are doing community service. They help elderly people. They do the shopping. They do the housework. They clean the yards. They even paint the houses.

How about you? How would you fix this paragraph, or should it need fixing?

Solution 1:

Common sense tells us what the paragraph is trying to say, but it does read oddly because logically it could be telling us that the young people do their own shopping etc. I don't think that substituting the for their is any improvement.

I would suggest They help elderly people with shopping, housework, cleaning yards and even house-painting.