The popular Wishing Trees project, which has been running for many a year now, takes on a new form this year due to the pandemic. This is the reason why you have not found any Christmas trees hung with children's wishes set up around the steelworks, so you haven't been able to pick a card and fulfill the Christmas wishes of one of the children in "our" two foster homes, the St. Clement Hofbauer Foster Home in Podolinec and the Uralská Street Center for Children and Families in Košice. This doesn't mean that the children have to go without their dream gifts this Christmas, because the Company has stepped in to represent the employees, donating both money and gifts to the homes. "This is a great gesture, and we're really very grateful for it," says Uralská Street Center Director Jana Funderáková. "The children will pick out their gifts together with their 'aunties', who know them as if they were their real mothers." The children most often choose electronics or clothes as gifts, and they find them as is customary in every family: under the Christmas tree.

So the gifts are already chosen, or at least they are "on the way" to the Podolinec foster home as well. "The carers helped the children with their gift choices, because it was possible to buy them only via internet," says Foster Home Director Štefan Straka. "The children had all sorts of wishes, just like all kids. And because ice-hockey is very popular with them, the majority of them chose sports gear - sticks, helmets and skates."

In addition to money for buying the gifts, the Podolinec Foster Home and the Uralská Street Center both received a symbolic check to the value of 7 500 euros.