Living a meaningful life does not only boil down to staying healthy and having family and children, but also to doing good deeds. Planting a tree means setting the beginning of a small eternity. This was what Elnar and Behchet Hamid, a young family couple from the village of Kitanchevo in Isperih municipality did. Behchet is known to the people of Isperih as chairman of the local wrestling sports club and a businessman, and his wife Elnar is a nursery school teacher in the northeastern Bulgarian town. The young family has a three-year-old son. This year they are celebrating their fifth wedding anniversary and instead of organizing celebrations, they wanted to leave something for the next generations. Behchet and Elnar came up with the idea for "Plant a tree - be healthy" initiative quite spontaneously.

"Since the fifth wedding anniversary is known as Wood Anniversary, we decided to share it with the people of Ipserih. Initially, our idea was to plant a single tree only, but later we decided to plant more and leave an entire forest park for the future generations," says Elnar.

Bechet and Elnar bought one hundred pine trees with own funds. The saplings were planted in the area near the local hospital. The young couple express special thanks to the municipal authorities for helping them find a suitable place for afforestation.

Elnar and Behçet want their initiative to become a tradition and see other young families follow their example.

"We hope that our small forest will grow every year. We are convinced that more and more people will get involved in the initiative and spend some time doing something that will live for decades and make air cleaner", the young family couple from Kitanchevo said further

English version: Kostadin Atanasov