Last week, an event was organised to clean up Karatasou Park, which was organised by a group of organisations: PROTEKTA Thessalonikis, Union of Pontians of Polichni, Thessaloniki's Group of Naval-scouts, Federation of Fighting and Martial Arts Referees, PERKA, LEK Thessalonikis, Youth Council Alliances, Health-care providers of Thessaloniki, Deputy mayor of Environment and Culture, Football Sports Association "LYKOI".
Volunteers from the elderly to the young participated in the clean-up of the park. The event began around 10 a.m., lasted four hours. At the end of the event there was a cake, cakes for volunteers.
I did an interview with two volunteers, with Maria Papachristou and with DimitrIs Papadopoulos. I asked Maria P. What she thought of volunteering, cleaning the park, she replied, "That volunteering means to her like cleaning your soul, when you give something of your own what you get is much more than you give, it feels fulfilled, it's hard to describe it because the feelings, what you feel is that you want to give, to take care of the park, about another man, about animals. Volunteering comes from the inside of a man, from what's inside you, it's also something you can learn, in organizations, at school, from your parents, but it certainly comes from you alone. I didn't have the support of another to go volunteer, but when I was little I watched my dad or mom throw trash out the car window and I'd always say, "No, NO, you can't do that, that's not good!" Dimitris P. Mi answered the same question: "This used to be a military camp, but over time people started coming with children, with friends, to run, to hang out, and the former camp became a commercial park. The municipality alone can't clean everything up, so we as volunteers help them" Then I asked him,"What's his reason for doing this? " he said, "For fun, to socialize, to support other volunteers... By now that I'm coming with the kids, I'd see a lot of garbage, now that we've cleaned the park, the next time I get there it's going to be clean, nice for the eyes, safer for the kids."