Last week we went to the Arvo Pärt Centre in Laulasmaa with volunteers from the foundation. We had barely begun our visit when the joyful maestro himself appeared, brandishing a piece from his archive.

"You all seem so happy to be here!" he smiled.

We presented the composer with a pair of woollen socks as a gift, knitted by our volunteer Kaisa Sein. Pärt initially tried the socks out on his hands!

We listened to the composer's inspiring life story and then shared a cake. We celebrated the birthdays of the foundation's CEO Katrin Kuusemäe and our very ambitious volunteer Kati Lepasalu, presenting both with bunches of flowers.

The bravest climbed to the top of the tower in the centre.

We thank the maestro and the staff at the centre for their warm welcome and inspiring stories and music.

Another story involving Arvo Pärt is that in 2015, the foundation’s founder and director Toivo Tänavsuu organised a charity conference and wrote an e-mail to the composer with a request to attend the conference to speak about goodness and doing good. Just a few minutes later Pärt called Tänavsuu, humbly thanked him for the invitation and said that although he would not be able to attend the conference, he did wish to help and would make a donation in support of cancer patients. The foundation soon witnessed a substantial act of kindness on the part of the composer.

In 2018 the Arvo Pärt Centre presented books and DVDs to the foundation, which we sold to American Estonians at charitable auctions dedicated to Estonian Independence Day.

We are very grateful for everything – and after our meeting we are certainly full of goodness!