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How I helped kids thanks to the Y Soft CSR Program

Kids gathered on a field in black and green jerseys

Does your company support your local communities and the ideas you believe in? Y Soft does and here is my story how I, together with my colleagues, supported a local floorball club that cares about kids and their free time.

I work at Y Soft as a Strategic buyer and since my childhood I loved sports. I started to play floorball in elementary school and I’m still an active player. My home-club is called TROOPERS and has 300 members, of which almost 200 are kids.

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When Y Soft launched its global CSR program for employees who are active in developing civic society, I didn’t hesitate a minute. The rules of the program are simple. Every employee can ask for a donation from the Y Soft CSR Fund for an institution or individual who helps in local communities. There are two levels of donations – if the employees are personally active in an initiative, they can apply 500 USD, if not and they just want to support a good thing, they can apply for 100 USD. The goal of this program is to encourage YSofters to be active in their community and to connect with each other to make the support even more extensive, because the more supporters you involve, the bigger donation you can get. And this was also our case.

For me, the selection was simple – as mentioned, TROOPERS don’t raise only sportsmen, our vision is to motivate kids to spend their free time in meaningful ways, to raise good people with a sense of fair play, with a love for sports, and with respect. Therefore, helping my home-club made sense to me. I believed that the money would bring more kids to the rink because TROOPERS could decrease the membership fee for them. In other words, a Y Soft donation would pay for the rental of the rinks so parents wouldn’t have to pay for it. 

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I felt that 500 USD was already a big donation, but if other YSofters joined me, then I could raise more money for the club. One of the ways to make this happen was TROOPERS Day – the birthday of the club when a TROOPERS’ entire family comes together and celebrates the big day. 

I reached out to my friends from work and described to them why I think supporting TROOPERS makes sense. At the end, seven colleagues from various departments joined me in my initiative. Their reasons were clear – they love sport as much as I do. One of my colleagues, Adriana, had a special reason to join me – her son also plays for TROOPERS. She knows the club and its values well and this is how she described her reason for the donation:

“This organization and the people associated with it put a lot of energy and effort when working with kids. They not only teach the kids how to play floorball but also to love the sport and to play fair.”

Together, we managed to raise 3,200 USD in total, and some of my colleagues joined me in the organization of Troopers Day so were able to apply for the higher donation amount.

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Not only did we have a day full of fun, but we also did something good for the club and their effort. TROOPERS used the money for the rink rental in two different locations in Brno, Czech Republic. The club was also able to organize training for coaches to be able to train using the newest trends.

If someone would ask me how much money we could raise for TROOPERS from the Y Soft Fund, I would never say it will be over 3,000 dollars. That totally exceeded my expectations.

Thanks to Y Soft for taking care of the society YSofters are living in. It is a great chance for us to decide where the support goes. When the new round of the CSR Fund comes, I will for sure take part in the CSR program again.