WOŚP - Polish social phenomenon
Wielka Orkiestra Świątecznej Pomocy is the name of a benevolent foundation and a yearly event in Poland where money is raised to buy modern equipment for hospitals. It changes from year to year. Volunteers all over Poland collect money from people on the street this one day in the year which is always at the beginning of January. Things of all sorts are sold at sales auctions. All of the media trasmit information about course of the event on the go. This year the donations will be allocated to buying equipment detecting oncological diseases among children. It's a noble purpose but I don't think that Poles are seriously interested in helping get specialistic equipment that will in majority will not bring any use to them personally. I think why they do participate is because they like the idea of doing something together as a nation. We cannot take part in any war now (good!) which used to unite us the most but we can together help children by raising funds for the equipment. It's this biggest service project that the Poles involve in once a year. It souds kind of sad that it's only once a year but I believe there's still a lot of good people who have their smaller and quieter service procects a lot more often during the year.
I must say whenever we (as family) go to a hospital - whether for birth or treatment we see the equipment of WOŚP being used or children sleep in beds donated by this foundation. It blesses our family. And when you throw that y 1 zloty, you have that sense of unity with the nation:)