BRIGHT’s Charity Committee Helps Restore Vitosha Nature Park

In July 2021, several BRIGHT employees and their families set out on a mission to restore and improve the park area of Yavorova meadow, which is a part of Vitosha Nature Park.

This action is a part of the activity of BRIGHT’s Charity Committee, and embodies our vision that we all need to work together to support our community, create a positive impact in the world and help preserve nature.

The BRIGHT team at Yavorova meadow

A small team of BRIGHT employees and their families gathered on a sunny July morning at Yavorova meadow (Yavorova polyana) in Vitosha. The team was led by Martin Pavlov, Senior ServiceNow Solution Consultant at BRIGHT.

Together, we worked to restore and improve the park area. To do this, we:

• Cleaned up the meadow
• Added new benches
• Renovated the bridge and the fountain
• Mowed the grass
• Put up a tourist information sign.

Hikers stopped by to talk with us and to thank us for our work.

“Perhaps the best part of the renovation—and some tourists mentioned that—is repairing the water fountain. Now it has drinking water running again,” Martin said. “An elderly lady passed by and said ‘Boys, the water is running again. Thank you!’ I imagined how she used to stop by the fountain in her youth and now there was water again, finally. That was a very heartwarming moment for both her and me.”

The Yavorova meadow is a place we all love and feel connected to. In fact, this is not the first time that the BRIGHT team has helped improve it: we began the restoration works two years ago, and continued them this July.

BRIGHT’s Charity Committee

The team who worked on restoring Yavorova meadow is part of BRIGHT’s Charity Committee, which aims to bring positive change to our community and help preserve the environment.

The Committee functions on a rotational basis, with five or six BRIGHT employees volunteering to be part of it every two years.

“The charity committee has its own budget, which is a percentage of the company’s revenue,” Martin said. “We use this budget to do volunteer work in line with the company’s values, such as promoting an active lifestyle, sharing our knowledge, and supporting different sports and educational initiatives.”

In the past few years, the Committee has organized and funded several charity initiatives, such as:

• Supporting a foster home in the village of Dren
• Donating hundreds of books to various institutions via its “Knigodar” initiative
• Donating books and gifts to the pediatric ward of a hospital
• Taking part in various nature preservation actions.

We’re now planning to donate books and board games to a community center, as well as build street gym facilities in a few locations in Sofia.

Each member of the committee is a team leader for a different charity cause, reflecting the things she or he is the most passionate about. “As a mountaineer, I volunteered for this one,” Martin said. In fact, he has experience both as a participant and a leader of charity work, and is always looking for ways to leave a trace and bring positive change.

One of the main goals of the Charity Committee is to organize more charity and volunteering initiatives where the BRIGHT team works together on the ground. From experience, these are the initiatives that have the greatest impact, both for our community and for us, as communication is an essential part of charity work.

BRIGHT’s employees are now planning to set up a small library near the monument of Bulgarian poet Peyo Yavorov, on the meadow that was named after him.