Jacek Stryczek – the Polish catholic priest, academic chaplain and the President of the SPRING Association. He studied vibroacoustics at the University of Science and Technology in Cracow (AGH), from which he graduated 1988. In the years 1988–1993, he studied at the Papal Theological Academy. He was ordained to the priesthood on 15 May 1993. As from 1995 he was the academic chaplain, among other things, at the St. Anna Collegiate and Collegium Medicum at Jagiellonian University. In the years 1999–2007, he was vicar of the Divine Mercy parish in Prokocim Nowy. Since 2007 he has been the Businessmen Chaplain and the Volunteers’ Chaplain in the Małopolska province. He specialises in the Church PR and the business social responsibility.
In 2001, he was one of the founders of the SPRING Association engaged in such projects as “Noble Parcel” and “Academy of the Future”. Noble Parcel (until 2009 the Christmas Parcel) – a nationwide project of assisting families in difficult financial situation implemented by the SPRING Association. Parcels are delivered to such families two weeks before christmas.
The campaign was organised for the first time in Cracow in 2000 when the group of academic pastoral care led by priest Jacek Stryczek (currently the President of the SPRING Association) gave gifts to 30 poor families. In the edition of 2013, within the framework of this campaign, 530.5 thousand donors provided parcels to 17,684 families (70,700 persons), and the total value of such aid amounted to PLN 33.1 million. One parcel was prepared on average by 30 persons. The programme is based on donations from private donors who respond to the needs of the most deprived persons from local communities. These needs are identified by volunteers, and they are entered in the anonymous web-based database. From this database, donors can chose any family they want to help. Each year around November, one can chose the family from the web-based database and prepare a parcel for them. The main principle of the Noble Parcel is to provide aid to those families who wish to change their situation. In each region, the project is managed by the leader who coordinates the whole work of the team of volunteers. Families are covered by the project according to one of the categories: a sick/disabled child in the family, a large family, old age and loneliness, illness, disability in the family, misfortune, a single-parent, others.
In the Noble Parcel project, each and every interested person may become the donor. Donors often group together to prepare a given parcel. They also encourage their friends, colleagues, associates, families, schoolchildren or students to do so. This campaign requires also the assistance of benefactors. The benefactor is a person who contributes financial resources to the Noble Parcel. By supporting this project on a regular basis one can join the club “Spring and Friends”. Apart from private donors, the campaign is also supported by various organisations and individuals. So far, the campaign was joined by Pope Francis, the Presidential Couple Andrzej and Agata Duda, Jerzy Dudek with the Real Madrid team, the sisters: Agnieszka and Urszula Radwańska, Anna and Robert Lewandowski, Jakub Błaszczykowski and Łukasz Piszczek, just to mention a few.
Father Jacek Stryczek receiving the PRO PUBLICO BONO 2017 FOR THE FUTURE award,
handed by Secretary of State in the Ministry of Development Andżelika Możdżanowska,
President of the Chapter of Awards professor Elżbieta Mączyńska and Janusz Cieślak,
President of EBC Poland.
