Thank you for reaching here!
We encourage you to take the next step and press DONATE
Your donation can support:
When you choose to donate, you enter the story of a life and help write a better future.
Discover below the impact of your donation
With your help, we can:
Every donation means an extra chance for a child who faces daily hardships. Your involvement has real effects, both in the present and in the future.
Costs a child's canteen for one month.
Would help us buy bicycles for 2 of the children who come to Hercules from neighboring villages and often travel the road from the center to home on foot. Also, 300 lei is the cost of a child's school supplies for an entire year.
Ensures lunch for all the children at one of the Hercules or BufKids day centers for one day (50 children/center).
Online donations are simple and secure. After completing the form below, you will be directed to the secured page MobilPay.ro where you will fill in only the card-related data. You can donate any amount greater than 5 lei. For each donation, MobilPay will charge a commission of 2.5% + VAT, which will be paid by us, the Hercules Association.
You can donate money – in lei or euro – via bank transfer or payment order directly into the Hercules Association account.
Bank: BRD, Costești branch, Argeș.
LEI Account: RO97 BRDE 030S V446 7806 0300
EURO Account: RO55 BRDE 030S V824 9144 0300
If you want to donate clothes, footwear, books, computers, toys for children of any age, or if you want to donate food, hygiene items for the children's families – write to us and we will establish together the details related to the donation and transport.
If you like what we do and resonate with our mission to offer education to children from disadvantaged backgrounds, you have the opportunity to get involved now, making a simple but important gesture. Until May 25th, you can complete and submit Form 230 through which you redirect to the Hercules Association 3.5% of your income tax.
This is money that you are obliged to pay to the state anyway. You can decide that this money supports a cause you believe in. And starting this year, you can offer your support for a longer period, opting to distribute the amount for a period of 2 years.
Persons who generate income from salaries and salary-equivalents, pensions, independent activities, intellectual property rights can choose to redirect a part of the tax owed to the state of 3.5% to support non-governmental organizations, religious units, or private scholarships by completing and submitting Form 230.
Starting this year, you can offer your support for a longer period, opting to distribute the amount for a period of 2 years.
It costs you nothing. The money you choose to direct towards an NGO would return to the state anyway. You only have to fill in your personal data and sign Form 230. Then you submit it or send it by mail to the Financial Administration where you are registered.
Alternatively, we can submit them for you, if you send us the completed and signed forms to the address: Costești, 40 Victoriei St., Argeș county..
If you wish to find the address of the Administration you belong to, based on your fiscal domicile, you can access them here (the list of financial administration addresses from all over the country).
Download here Form 230.
Help us help!
Thank you!
For any additional information, contact us or write us a private message on Facebook/AsociatiaHercules.
You can stand by us and change lives by getting involved as a volunteerin the activities of the Hercules Association and/or by becoming a fundraiser. Every gesture matters. If you have a blog or are active on social media, your voice can become hope for children: talk about Hercules, share our messages, and help us reach people who can offer support. This is also a form of volunteering, just as important.
As a volunteer, you can come to the BufKids Center in Buftea or the Hercules Center in Costești and be part of the moments that give meaning to our work – smiles, discoveries, confidence gained step by step. You can join the activities we already carry out, or we can create a new activity together, born from the desire to offer children more care, education, and real chances for the future.
If you cannot be physically present, you can support us from wherever you are by becoming a fundraiserfundraiser for the Hercules Association.
Your involvement can make a difference where it is needed most. Here is how:
Mobilizing your friends – offline or online – to donate for the children at Hercules. If you need materials or presentations about Hercules, we can provide them to you. If you collect gifts together with your friends, we welcome you to visit Hercules to hand them to the children personally. Send us a message and we will discuss your initiative to organize ourselves.
You can become a fundraiser for the Hercules Association by participating in sporting events and encouraging your friends to support you by donating for Hercules. A few examples of initiatives through which good people like you have helped us raise funds.
"The desire to volunteer has existed for a long time. For various reasons, I didn't do much about it. Last year was a year of changes for me from many points of view. I met the children and the beautiful people at the Hercules Association in December 2014, with the help of Cristina Șerban, a Hercules volunteer. The smiles and the warmth with which I was received among them determined me to help as much as I can, however little that may be. For this reason, this year I allocated one day a week to spend time with the children. I help with homework, we do games and exercises in English and various other activities.
I cannot describe in words the wonderful feelings I have when I see the little ones smiling and sincerely enjoying every tiny achievement (a word pronounced correctly, a homework finished faster, an exercise understood, a funny game). Alongside them, I learned to appreciate what I have to a much greater extent. It is amazing every time how the Hercules team strives to take one more step forward and help shape tomorrow's society. I am happy that I can also have a small contribution to this project of forming beautiful people."
"As a Vodafone employee, I have been involved in numerous volunteer events organized by the company. Among all the wonderful NGOs I have known, however, only the Hercules Association truly stuck to my soul and made me think seriously about volunteering as a long-term lifestyle.
It might have been the small and warm-hearted team I met at the Hercules Center that convinced me, a handful of people determined to change for the better the destinies of children and the mentalities of parents in a small and poor community. Or maybe it was actually the children who made me move to Costești for 9 months to be able to come to Hercules daily. I accidentally met 50 good and beautiful children, who do not deserve all the problems they face, and I felt that I wanted to help them, with everything I can and however I can.
Today, I use all my experience, skills, and knowledge to promote and help the Hercules Day Center, and I am the one who feels rewarded. Thank you, children, and thank you Hercules for this wonderful volunteering experience!"
"I chose to become a volunteer at the Hercules Association because a few good months ago, when I opened the Association's door for the first time, I found a welcoming center, with wonderful activity, daily dedicating itself to the education of children in the town of Costești, for whom life does not always smile. Alongside the cutest beneficiaries and a small but confident and dedicated team, I felt from the first day that this is my place, that here I will be able to give what I have learned but also to gather what I do not know.
This is the path I have chosen and after every day in which I got involved in the association's activities, I realize I made the best choice.
Vodafone Romania Foundation gave me the opportunity to put into practice a project dear to me – Photos through the eyes of children. This project is an opportunity for 150 children to discover photographic art, develop their creativity, and create stories while having fun at the same time. The photography workshop is an occasion to bond new friendships, to socialize, and to discover a magical world – the world of photography."
"I have been practicing as a lawyer for 3 years, being a member of the Argeș Bar. In Costești, the Court is right next to the Association's headquarters and, after finding out what wonderful work the people here do - helping over 50 children from troubled families not to drop out of school and giving elderly people the chance to feel useful - I started coming to give them a helping hand as well. With legal advice, with a request to the authorities, with a bit of involvement in solving some problem that exceeded their possibilities. One thing led to another; I became part of the family and was already their volunteer. The idea to enroll in the 'Professional Volunteer' program [of the Vodafone Foundation] came rather from Mrs. Petruța Stănescu: 'you must stay with us more!' and I sent the project to the Vodafone Romania Foundation. It was really great that it was selected!
Giving up law for 6 months is nothing special. I can practice law until old age, until retirement and after that, but to be a volunteer for such a cause is interesting, it is different. To feel useful, to have the satisfaction that you did something for your fellow human beings, that you changed through your work or your gesture the destiny of a child or helped a person obtain their rights, is much more important! That brings you much more spiritual fulfillment."
Stephen was 21 when he came to Romania in 2008, specifically to volunteer and get to know our country. He chose the Hercules Association at the recommendation of the Princess Margareta of Romania Foundation. He first heard about Romania in December 1989 and wanted to know more about"this shaken country" yourself.
For several months he was hosted at the Hercules Center and helped with all the Center's activities: he helped the children with homework and spoke to them exclusively in English, he painted, mowed the grass, prepared meals for the little ones, wrote the Association's annual report in English, and helped us with various translations.
A few years after the volunteering experience, Stephen wrote to us that he misses the Hercules Center, he misses hearing the Romanian language, drinking cherry brandy, and eating "chicken, cucumbers, tomatoes, and cheese". "I fell in love with Romania".
"At the Bucharest International Half Marathon, I ran so that dozens of poor children in my hometown could have access to education, a more beautiful childhood, and a chance at a better life than that of their parents.
I admire the Hercules Day Center and its small team for the perseverance with which for over 8 years they have mobilized people and resources for the benefit of children. For the generosity and determination with which they fight daily against poverty and the lack of opportunities for children in a poor and economically and socially isolated community."
Emilian carried out two fundraising campaigns for Hercules: in 2011 – the"Step by step for Hercules"campaign, when he climbed the Aconcagua peak (6962 m) in Argentina – and in the 2012 campaign ("Step by step through snow").
"I decided to support 50 children so they can continue their studies, develop, find the answers to the questions that trouble them, and climb the mountains of life themselves! Their parents love them very much, but they cannot support their education alone!"
"What does the Hercules Center mean to me? A place full of hope, where I return with pleasure every time. Here you truly learn what 'to give' means. You give time, experience, and smiles and in exchange, you fill yourself with energy!"
"Once you visit Hercules, you can't help but come back! The place, the team, but especially the children, truly touch your soul!"
*volunteer = a person with a big heart who supports a cause they care about voluntarily and without any financial interest.
volunteer fundraiser = a generous, active, and motivated person who wants to do goodby mobilizing their own network of acquaintances to raise funds or items for a cause they care about.
