Ivana Gligorić, a girl from a village close to Loznica decided to use her birthday celebration to help a good cause - instead of receiving gifts from her guests, she asked them to donate money to Always With Children (Uvek sa decom), an association which helps the treatment of children with cancer and their families.

During the evening, she and her friends collected EUR900 (RSD107,000) in the donation boxes and through SMS donations. Out of the full amount, EUR300 (RSD37,000) was given directly to Nikola, her friend who is still being treated at the Institute for Oncology and Radiology of Serbia, and the rest was donated to the association.

Ivana got the idea while planning her party: “There are a lot of kids who need help during treatment. I had a tumor on my femur and I know how much money it takes to pay for the therapy and treatments. Because I couldn’t gather a large sum of money myself, I got the idea when I was giving out the invitations for my birthday and realized that there was going to be around 500 people, that together we could do something nice and useful.”