Bulgaria is our home away from home. In the small, central village of Stolat, we own 2,200 acres of land that we call ‘The Centre‘, complete with a 980 square foot restored barn, 15 bedrooms, a fire pit, and a pool. The Center is used for service learning trips, educational programs, international forums, and more. ‘The Centre‘ is our home base for our service-learning programs that teach English as a second language and run free summer camps for local Bulgarian youth. Students who travel to Bulgaria on our high-school trips meet with local high school students in Veliko Tarnovo to participate in a cultural exchange. Activities include interactive games and learning about one another’s similarities and differences in culture.
Our Honey and Bee reserve is set on these 2,200 acres of pristine Bulgarian forests. ‘The Centre‘ is surrounded by hillsides of Lavender, and Linden trees, and wild roses along with Balkan wildflowers. This natural setting gives our award winning honey an incredibly complex and rich taste. We are completely organic and our honey has been certified as top grade. Profit from each jar of honey that is sold helps to sustain our youth programs and also goes towards scholarships for students to travel abroad to our Balkan Retreat Centre to work on sustainable projects in person.
Our recently purchased communist-era theater in Stolat that is in the process of being restored. Our vision for the theater is to provide storefronts for local business opportunities, refurbish the existing theatre for children to celebrate arts and culture, create a medical clinic to provide much-needed health services to the local community, and establish a school, library, and museum to promote education and cultural preservation. During our service learning trips to Bulgaria, students will help clean up and restore the theater, eventually turning it into a community and cultural center for Stolat by housing a library, museum, theater, a free health clinic, and classroom space. The theater will be open for anyone in Stolat to use for any reason that applies.
