Bring, Take, and Connect: Charity in Blagoevgrad

Mirela Kyuchukova is the head of the charity kitchen at the Orthodox Church “Saint Nicolai” in Gramada district, Blagoevgrad.

 

For a few years, she visited a man in his old, ruined house. The man had been an alcoholic for a long time and had never been married or had children. Initially, he did not talk to Mirela. He even did not want the food, but she would leave it there and go. “Over time, he started waiting for me,” she said. He would leave her a pot on the sill of the window.  She noticed he started watching her from inside. Neighbors were saying that he was waiting for her to come. Finally, he started talking to her, but in very brief sentences.

 

One day she went and beside the pot, there were three yellow pears. Surprised, she asked:

 

- Why have you left these pears here? Take them, and the food here.

 

And he said:

 

- No, I bring them for you, I found out you have three children. I want to give them to your children.

 

And she answered:

 

- My children have enough. Don’t worry!

 

But he continued:

 

- I want to tell you something. Listen to me. Since you are coming, I realized that in this world there is at least one person who cares about me. I stopped wanting to die.

 

 

Since the beginning of the initiative eight years ago, this is the story that has resonated with her the most.

 

Now 250 people come each Saturday to receive a warm meal. The work of preparing the food is based totally on voluntarism. There are 35 regular volunteers, divided into 5 teams, and some other participants who come for additional help.

 

Mirela said that they are different by sex and age. The oldest team leader is 80 years old. Their professions also vary – business owners, teachers, kindergarten principals, and housekeepers are uniting their powers.

 

“But even among these people who are well and have financial stability, often appears a feeling of emptiness, routineness, loss of meaning. Actually, a charity initiative, whatever it is, (…) aims to bring people again a meaning to their lives. They see that meaning can be in helping others,” Mirela said.

 

 

Other people participate in campaigns although they do not have that much themselves.

 

“On the picture is Tanya. She helps on the upper station. She is not a volunteer, but this is the woman who has donated the most money. Actually, she is a cleaner, she is not rich. (…) This woman spares something of each salary for us, for our causes,” said Bilyana Topurska, founder of “Bring and Take” – one of the largest charity initiatives in the Blagoevgrad region.

 

The idea of the campaign is not only to help those in need but also to help nature. People bring used clothes, domestic supplies, toys, and books to two stations in the town – 6 Nicolai Petrini Street and 108 Todor Aleksandrov Street. There ten regular volunteers wait to collect and organize them. The rooms where the stations are look like second-hand shops. All kinds of people, in need or not, come to take what they like for a price they can afford.

 

“The idea of ‘Bring and Take’ is not only for the poor ones. It’s not only the ones in need. The idea is for the goods to be used in maximum and to not be thrown just like this at the bin,” said Bilyana.

 

 

With the items collected the team also organizes auctions on its Facebook page. It donates all the money from them and the stations to different causes – often children with illness or prematurely born babies. When there is money left, they use it to pay for the delivery of some of the goods to different places in Bulgaria, where they know there are people in need.

 

Mirela also meets families in difficult situations on a daily basis. She said that the receivers of food from the kitchen are predominantly with very low income, some of them elderly citizens. Often there is some difficulty in the family, for example, addiction to alcohol, drugs, or gambling. According to Mirela, everybody deserves help if they behave properly when coming to the kitchen. They cannot send anyone who asked for a warm meal back, she said.

 

“Here we have celebrated the 90^th birthdays of the receivers a few times. These people perceive us more as friends and here is the other role of the social initiative. It aims to activate in some way the old person who is lonely,” she added.

 

The interaction between the helpers and the helped ones is the key element of some of the initiatives of the Better Community Club (BCC) at AUBG as well. The 20-year-old student club not only organizes bazaars to raise money for different causes but also visits the people they support. This year they went to the center “Saint Yoan Rilksi” in Blagoevgrad where young people with disabilities live.

 

“We entered and there was the kinesiotherapist who welcomed us. Randomly some people came up. One of them was dancing. The other one was just asking us ‘Do you want water?’ A third one was just staring at us and we were like ‘Okay, don't worry!’ There was this guy in a wheelchair who came to us and immediately started to ask us so many questions: ‘What are we doing here? Who are we? Nice to meet you!,’” said Bozhana Manolova, president of BCC.

 

 

With a smile on her face, she remembered how happy the people were to see them. The feeling was similar at the municipality’s event at Skaptopara Hall for the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, where BCC members volunteered. Bozhana stated that bringing people with and without disabilities together was crucial.

 

“One girl told me: ‘I want my children to grow up with the mindset that there are people in wheelchairs or they're people without a wheelchair. They're people with problems in their minds. They're people that are not like that. But we're one community. We're with human beings,’” she said.

 

For her influencing the community not just once but consistently is what brings change. For example, each year BCC organizes a bazaar for breast cancer awareness. This year the bazaar included a marathon in collaboration with AUBG Olympics and raised 3400 leva - 1000 leva more than last year.

 

 

Bilyana also believes that “Bring and Take” has impacted the attitude of Blagoevgrad’s citizens. They do not perceive second-hand goods as before.

 

“More and more people have learned not to worry about taking. To take is not something to be ashamed of. Let’s say you have a grandchild, you have money, for example. You can go to the shop, but why not come here to take something, right?” she said.

 

What always leaves a trace is the attention to the people in need.

 

Mirela said that the man from the old house lived 2-3 years more and then passed away. She would go until the end. He was on his deathbed and his close ones were taking care of him. They told her that he was still waiting for her to visit.

 

“So, a week passed, and he waited for me to go and bring [food]. Simply because somebody cares. Nobody accuses him because he is an alcoholic or whatever. There are a lot of such people for who this food gives hope. When some young people go there, they bring a different energy and they do not accuse but say: I am here because you are a human.”

 

This article has been written by Maria Hristova, an AUBG student. It is part of the collaboration between AUBG Daily and the Newsroom course led by Prof. Laura Kelly.