The U. S. Steel Košice Foundation has supported hundreds of different projects during its the fourteen-year existence. Its activities affect the areas of education and training, health care, science, culture, humanity and charity, as well as the field of environmental creation and preservation. The Foundation has helped organizations, institutions with various orientations but also people experiencing severe conditions and difficult life situations. How do individual addressees perceive the support of the Foundation?
Viktor Harman, who is gifted and talented in sport, is one of those who are included in the Company´s program with the title: "Your Chance to Play".
"I learned about this program from my colleague and in addition to him, the Foundation has also financially helped us to pay the costs linked with our children's sporting activities," says his father Marcel. "My son has been playing soccer for three years already, and a year ago he transferred to the newly-established Janočko Academy club led by Vladimir Janočko, a former Slovak player and a member of Kosice´s soccer team, and extremely successful in international soccer competitions," adds Marcel, who is our colleague. He has been working at our subsidiary RMS, a.s. Košice for over eighteen years. He also adds that the club takes only really talented children from Eastern Slovakia, so it just shows that his son is getting on well in this popular sport.
"The players are coached by former Slovak national squad members, like Vladimír Janočko and Miroslav Sovič. The children have their training four times a week, on Saturdays they usually take a roughly one-hour run, which is greatly beneficial for them. After such exercise, the coach tends to take them to a wellness center to regenerate. The training takes place without any vexation between the children and coaches, always in a good mood. Children attend it with smiles, joy and commitment," says Marcel Harman, describing the atmosphere of the training sessions. He also reveals that Viktor loves soccer most of all. He is skillful, and playing in a defense position suits him best.
"Our financial support from the U. S. Steel Košice Foundation has been spent on purchasing soccer kit. The soccer clothes and boots that our son is wearing in the photo were bought using this money. Thank you very much. It has really helped us because my wife is on maternity leave with our one-year-old second son. I provide for my family financially and our expenses for Victor are a little higher. I believe that the three per cent of my tax paid, which I intend to contribute to the Foundation, will help my son and other children engaged in the "Your Chance to Play" program," says Marcel Harman.
