In Cășeiu, children have no place to play, to spend their free time and there aren't many extracurricular activities for them. At Dumbrava, kids will find toys, games, educational materials, books and the opportunity to expand their horizons.

Dumbrava is also a safe place where children can ask for help, no matter what their problem is.

Many animals are abused or suffer, alone, in a shelter or on the streets. Some need physical recovery, other need behavioural therapy. We want to work with them and give them a chance to be adopted.

We also organise spaying campaigns, with the aim of reducing abandonment for dogs and cats. Working with the authorities is also one of our aims, to promote campaigns sponsored by them and reduce the number of contracts done with kill shelters.

Dumbrava lui Patrocle is not only a place for children and animals, like in the story by Mihail Sadoveanu, there are also the grandparents and other individuals, who, in Romania, also need help.

The help required ranges from going to doctors with people, buying groceries, buying medicine, helping people recover after disasters(like a burnt house).

Maybe it is hard to understand how all this ties together, but we cannot improve the situation for people and animals in Romania, if we don't teach children about the world around us, if they don't see how much animals suffer and how many people live with very little, without anyone caring for them.

From the beginning of Dumbrava, children have been involved in caring for the animals and also in our charity campaigns, where we visited older people, or people that due to health issues cannot do more for themselves. We've also introduced successful people to them, people that are working in other ways to improve the situation of people and animals from Romania.

We can see that in 3 years, the children became responsible teenagers, that dedicate their free time to projects that make the lives of the people around them better. In return, they learn new skills, they have a place to hang out and more importantly a place where they can ask for help, no matter what their problem is.