By Maja Turniski | Project Leader, program manager
Help Us Bring Warmth and Life to Suncokret’s New Community Center
We have a new space. Now we need your help to turn it into a warm, welcoming home for our community.
We’re excited to share how far we’ve come in creating Suncokret’s new Community Center. Every step forward has been made possible by the generosity, creativity, and support of people who believe in our community. Now, we need your help to take the next essential step: bringing warmth to our new home.
In June 2025, the roof of our previous community center collapsed. It was a devastating blow. We had already spent five long years waiting for repairs to our original space following the 2020 earthquakes. Just when we thought we were finally getting closer to having a place of our own again, we lost it.
But we didn’t give up.
At the beginning of this year, we were finally able to rent a new building in the heart of the village. It marked a new beginning for Suncokret—and, we hope, for the children, young people, families, and older adults who rely on our programs and services.
Since then, we’ve been working hard to transform this building into a true community center, one step at a time.
And even before the space was finished, we began bringing it to life.
We cleaned, repaired, and prepared the building together. Our talented artist Evgeniia brought color and warmth to the space by beautifully painting the windows.
An international volunteer also generously donated her artwork to help us open the doors of our still half-finished center to the community. Her gift inspired us to organize an art exhibition and art workshops, inviting people to come together, explore their creativity, and experience the potential of this new space.
The building wasn’t finished, but something important had already begun. People were gathering, art was bringing us together, and an empty space was starting to feel like a community home.
These moments remind us why this center matters. A community space doesn’t become a home only when the walls are finished. It becomes a home when people come together, share their talents, learn from one another, and feel that they belong.
Now, we need your help with the next—and most urgent—step: heating our new center.
Before we can fully open the space and run our programs comfortably throughout the colder months, we need to install air-conditioning/heating units and radiators. We are raising funds to purchase this essential equipment so that our center can become a warm, safe, and welcoming place for everyone who walks through its doors.
Your donation can help make this possible.
A contribution of any size brings us closer to opening our doors. Your support can help create a warm room where a child discovers a new skill, a safe place where young people gather and find encouragement, a welcoming space where adults connect, and a place where older community members can feel less isolated.
Because this is about so much more than heating a building.
It’s about creating a place where a child can learn and grow.
Where a young person can find encouragement and belonging.
Where neighbors can come together and support one another.
Where older people can feel connected and valued.
Where people can learn, create, share, and heal.
For more than two decades, Suncokret has provided free educational, social, and community programs for children, young people, and older adults in one of Croatia’s most underserved post-war regions. We have seen how a safe, welcoming space can strengthen relationships, nurture potential, and change lives.
Our community has endured so much—from war and displacement to earthquakes and the loss of our previous center. Yet time and again, people have found ways to come together, support one another, and begin again.
Today, we are doing that once more.
With every repair, every painted window, every donated artwork, and every person who has joined us for an exhibition or workshop, we are building something bigger than a building. We are rebuilding a place for connection, creativity, dignity, and hope.
We are deeply grateful to everyone who has helped us get this far. Every donation, every volunteer hour, every act of generosity, every shared post, and every word of encouragement has brought us one step closer to our goal.
But we still need your help to bring warmth to our new home.
Please consider making a donation today to help us purchase the heating equipment we need and bring Suncokret’s new Community Center one step closer to opening its doors fully.
If you cannot donate, you can still make a difference. Please share our story with your friends, family, colleagues, and networks. Help us reach others who believe in the power of community and would like to stand alongside us.
Together, we can turn this once-empty building into a warm, vibrant space filled with learning, art, laughter, connection, and hope.
One building. One community. One step at a time.
Thank you for helping us rebuild—not just a center, but a place to call home.
By Maja Turniski | Project Leader, program manager
By Maja Turniski | Project Leader, program manager
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