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Dear Friends,
On September 15, classrooms across Bulgaria will once again fill with raised hands. From the start, that gesture is about more than having the right answer. It means taking part, taking a chance, showing that you have something to contribute.
Then we grow up. We stop raising our hands, but the instinct still matters, especially when no one has asked and you can see that help is needed.
Sometimes that means leaving your day job behind, pulling on a helmet, and heading toward a wildfire. Sometimes it means walking away from secure employment, betting on someone you have only just met, and building something that goes on to help thousands. And sometimes it means simply noticing where you can be useful – and offering a lead, a connection, or your full attention.
The raised hand disappears and gets busy helping. The message remains: “You can count on me.”
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Fire Doesn’t Ask What You Do for a Living
They are couriers, project managers, mechanics. But when a forest catches fire, they put on protective gear and head toward it. Meet the men and women of Sofia 343 – the volunteer firefighters who helped fight ten wildfires this summer and now need our help. Join us in supporting them on September 19.
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From a Chance Meeting at Hive to a European Deal
Siyanna and Chris met at Hive in 2024. Today, the product they built with their team has more than 20,000 users and is now part of a European legal-tech company. What can begin with one conversation – and who might you meet at Hive on September 17–18 this year?
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School ends. Some lessons don’t. We asked six leaders from business and the nonprofit world which teacher or lesson still shapes the way they think and work.
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School teaches us how to learn. It teaches us how to think. And that matters even more now because it has become so easy to outsource your thinking to AI. If you do that across every subject, what happens when you have to think for yourself in real life?
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When I look back on my school years, grades are not the first thing I remember. I remember people and a few lessons I may not have fully understood at the time, but that have stayed with me for life.
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My literature teacher used to hand back my essays with one note: “Cut it by a third.” I would do it, irritated, and every single time the piece got better. It turned out I was writing at length not because I had so much to say, but because I wasn’t yet sure what I wanted to say.
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Again and again in my professional life, I have seen that success is rarely just luck. What looks from the outside like perfect timing is often the result of work done long before the opportunity appeared.
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Today, as we once again live through a period of profound change and uncertainty, I find myself thinking about those history classes more and more. The most important lesson is that history matters not only because it helps us understand the past, but because we can learn from it.
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For me, informal education — hobbies, first jobs, internships, mentorship, the people you surround yourself with — is every bit as important as formal schooling. In my own life, at times it may have taught me even more.
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Sending warmest regards,
The America for Bulgaria Foundation team
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