March 12 was an especially sunny and colorful day, but not just because of the delightful sunshine. Along with 30 colleagues from Vodafone Romania, we went to Costeşti, Argeş, where we met the children in the care of the Hercules Association and we painted the building’s walls together.
The Hercules Day Care Centre, financed by the Vodafone Romania Foundation is the only one of its kind in the south of Argeş county. Here, 50 children from underprivileged families receive help with their homework, additional tutoring on the subjects they are having trouble with and they participate in various sports and recreational activities. The Hercules Day Centre also serves them lunch, which is very important for the little ones. Their activity is supervised everyday by volunteer teachers and professors, a kindergarten teacher and a psychologist.
The building where the children have their classes was recently renovated and it would’ve been a shame for the tall white walls to remain in that hospital-like state. Consequently, yesterday we took up painting. We drew scenes from fairy tales, cartoons, fruits and vegetables in the dining hall, and many other images which the children can relate to. The little ones were not only excited by the new interior design taking shape in front of their eyes, but they didn’t hesitate to grab a brush and work right alongside us.
Some of our colleagues sacrificed themselves – we can’t all be artists, now can we? – and they offered to clean up the activity rooms, where they pulled out the old carpets and replaced them with new ones. And because the children needed new furniture, we also built shelves for the goodies room.
You can find more pictures in the album we created for this occasion, on our Facebook page.
The Vodafone Romania Foundation is the first corporate foundation in Romania to implement as well as regulate a company-wide employee programme through which the aforementioned benefit from two vacation days a year for participating in volunteering activities.
