The UPJŠ Botanical Garden (BZ UPJŠ) is a green oasis in the middle of Košice. With an area of 30 hectares, it is the largest botanical garden in Slovakia and its collection fund exceeds four thousand species, subspecies and cultivars of plants. Caring for such a large area is difficult and the garden's staff welcome the help of volunteers. As part of our corporate Volunteer Days, we have been helping this place for many years. It was no different on Saturday.

Right in the morning, before the arrival of the public, the deputy director of the UPJŠ Botanical School, Robert Gregorek, invited our volunteers to a greenhouse with live tropical butterflies. They could enjoy an attractive exhibition of butterflies with an interesting interpretation.

In a good mood, they got to work. Five work zones were swarming with T-shirts with the inscription "Steelmakers for Košice - We have been helping for 20 years". The Volunteer Days celebrated a jubilee.

Mostly the group from last year met in the growing greenhouse: Martina Malegová, Monika Múdra, Eva Stanová, Vlasta Jesenská, and others. Under the baton of Vice-President Elena Petrášková, learning from last year's experience, they organized their work fantastically. They filled pots and raised beds with substrate and planted seedlings of non-traditional varieties of cucumbers, including interesting lemon ones. However, you would look in vain for the lemon flavor in them, they have it in the name only because of their color. The work, which took them four hours last year, was done this time in two. The team did not miss Viera Veresová, who has not missed a single brigade during the Volunteer Days in the last 20 years.

The second group of volunteers armed themselves with sandpaper, cans of paint and brushes. They treated the park benches on which visitors to the garden relax with two coats. Aurora Jajková, Zuzana Ondrejčo with her daughter Nelka, Daniela Jakubéczyová, Sandra Simková, our scholarship holder Noémi Orbánová and others gathered here. The team of three generations was formed by Slávka Nahajová, her daughter and mother – a former ironworker.

Jana Radianská has traditionally devoted herself to greenery and her favorite weeding. She brought her friend Erika, who has already become our regular volunteer. Diana Mašľanová joined the team  with her daughter. Janka sent a nice message after the event: "I want to thank you for another successful year, that I could be a part of it. We have done a lot of work again! I'm looking forward to next year."

Kosmas Bekiaris, Radovan Tomčo and Milan Beličák were  in a good mood concentrating at the concrete mixer and transporting concrete to the greenhouse, which was in dire need of revitalization.

Hard work was done by volunteers near the Api house, where they modeled the terrain for the creation of a future wetland, in which carnivorous plants will find a home. Branislav Klobošič, Martin Ondrej, Matúš Bakši, Peter Chytil, Igor Horňák, Róbert Gonda and our colleagues from Nippon Steel Jun Takekawa and Yutaka Chiyomori did a lot of work here. One day, when the wetland is finished, they can boast that they dug its foundations with their own hands.

They were joined by Mike Piekut and Isao Takenami, who came to greet the volunteers and also visited the butterfly exhibition. It was Isao's first visit to the botanical garden and he stayed to work with us until the end of the event. In the end of the event, he thanked all the volunteers: "Thank you for being able to join you and thank you also for coming here and improving our society and the environment with your work. I respect you and thank you for the work you have done here."

The representative of the BZ UPJŠ, Robert Gregorek, summed up what we have achieved:

"Today you have done something for nature, for us, but I hope also for yourself. Work in the botanical garden also includes demanding activities, and our fellow steelworkers have done a lot of useful work here, both in the field modeling on the plot called the historic pond, but also in the concreting in one of our greenhouses, which we are putting in order and which will serve its purpose for many years. Thank you for your fantastic performance in bringing the substrates to our grow greenhouse, where we grow a large assortment of tomatoes and pumpkins during the summer. I'm glad that we managed to sand and paint all the benches. You have helped us with activities with which we have already been pressed for time. We were also very happy to meet the new representatives of the company. We value a long-term tradition and look forward to working together in the future."

Elena Petrášková highlighted the cooperation with the botanical garden: "I evaluate today very well. You can see that we have been meeting here for several years, we have the right processes and the right communication. Also, the coordination with the employees from the botanical garden was excellent. I want to thank the botanical garden, the management, the employees and also our employees for coming. We are looking forward to next year."

Photo gallery:  Arpád Köteles