We constantly strive to help others and here is a list of some of the many projects we have been able to support:

2019
£673.50 + £119.63 gift aid = £793.13 to The Noah’s Ark Appeal to help run the Children’s Hospital of Wales
https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/aimee-sullivan5

2017/2018
We provided funds to replace the windows, doors and roof for “The Lounaris family” in Sri Lanka. We originally donated the house in 2006.
This is the first time we carried out work without being there personally. However due to workload we were unable to travel.

2017
Sam’s Firework Night raising money for: Guide Dogs for the Blind
£555 + £101.25 gift aid = £656.25
https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/aimee-sullivan3

2017
Tough Mudder 2016 raising money for Help for Heroes
£67 + £16.75 gift aid =
https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/aimee-sullivan1

2016
Pretty Muddy raising money for Cancer Research
£36 + £8.75 gift aid =
https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/aimeesullivan

2015
Aimee and Cat’s Ride for Life  raising money for Marie Curie
£1785 + £380.50 gift aid
https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/aimeeandcat

Held a Gala Charity Ball raising money for Marie Curie
£5,962 +£1227.25
https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/cavan-sullivan

The Hat Foundation

The HAT Foundation was established in 2005 by Cavan Sullivan, his wife Debra and daughter Aimee in response to the terrible tragedy of the South East Asian Tsunami which hit many places including Sri Lanka on 26 December 2004.  It was established to directly help these impoverished Tsunami victims through reconstruction projects, supporting educational establishments and individual families.

Between 2005 and 2015, when the charity closed, with your help we:

• Built and furnished a house for the Lounaris family.
• Paid for prescribed drugs for a seriously ill lad. Sponsored children to learn English.
• Purchased and distributed many food packages
• Purchased and distributed school shoes and socks.
• Bought school packs including uniforms and shoes.
• Financially supported families for their daily survival Built toilets, Well and Cess pit for Horigampita School.
• Refurbished toilets, steps and other building works at Majuwana School.
• Helped children of Udmulla Village.
• Had fresh water piped into Udmulla village and connected over 120 homes to that supply negating the need to visit a well.
• Most of the work centred around the education of children.

Who can forget that awful day in 2004 when we woke up to the news that a tsunami had devastated Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand among other countries. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed, hundreds of thousands more lost everything and some of the poorest countries were left wondering how they were going to pick up the pieces and start all over again. For Cavan Sullivan, a businessman from Barry, the event spurred him to action. Like millions of people watching the horrific events unfold on our television screens, Cavan knew he wanted to do something to help. “I decided I didn’t want to give money to a charity. Instead, I decided I wanted to pay for house to be built for one family” he said. He approached charities to find out how he could go about it, but after finding that they were unable to help, he then contacted embassy’s and high commissions affected by the disaster.

The Sri Lanka High Commission in London put him in touch with a charity called the ‘Foundation of Goodness’ and Cavan’s project got underway. “They told me they could build a brick house rather than wood and it was decided that they would go ahead with the project, which I would pay for, and then my wife,daughter and I would visit the house once it was complete” said Cavan. “I started contacting the charities in January 2005 and the project finally go started in the August. The house was finished January 2006 and we went out there the following month to meet the family who would be living there”. The house is in a tiny remote village, five kilometres in land on the banks of a river, close to a town called Hikkaduwa in the south west of Sri Lanka. The village was devastated as the killer wave rushed up the river causing devastaion in it’s path. The house is now home to the Lounaris family – Samina, who at the time was aged four, and her grandfather and grandmother. The house was paid for by Cavan, friends and customers of his double glazing firm, Welsh Windows.

He said he could not have carried out the project, and the subsiquent ones, without their help. He said St. Helen’s Infant School in Barry had also helped with fundraising. “They had very little when the tsunami struck and they lost everything. I watched it on Boxing Day and decided I wanted to give something back to the people who were affected.” said Cavan. But that was just the start of his work in Sri Lanka which has seen him buying shoes for children at local schools and paying for medicine for Niroshan, a young boy who needed a kidney transplant but who needed to show he could afford the medicine he would have to take after the operation and helping schools with building works.

As part of our charity work there, on our first vist in 2006 we promised 30 pairs of shoes for children who had never owned a pair in their lives. In 2015 Aimee presented the 3000th pair.

2014
Put electricity and new playground into Sir Arthur C Clarke School Sri Lanka

2012
Gala charity Ball  raising money for HAT Foundation £8000.00
https://www.barryanddistrictnews.co.uk/news/9508596.Barry_businessman_set_for_seventh_Sri_Lanka_mission/?fbclid=IwAR372C7yeQ423x0At1tZxhPyrmQH-I0wWu5qdc4a7mE9ceqCQKaxkglW2xg

2011
Over £8000 raised at ball for Hat Foundation
https://www.barryanddistrictnews.co.uk/news/9356347.Barry_based_HAT_Foundation_charity_raises___8_000_at__black_tie_ball_/?ref=rss&fbclid=IwAR24pLsMvtTW1cjVOPD14Nm3n31yAol-yV8x1noMega6cgxLxeM_vStsCIk

2010
Held a Gala Charity Ball Raising money for Hat foundation over £8000.00 raised
https://www.barryanddistrictnews.co.uk/news/8480785.Second_annual_ball_for_Barry_based_HAT_Foundation/?fbclid=IwAR0gXmtiuDcvyczPkrJm1kZMNHyK89eG9M4Gi1FsdA2dc-YPrVPwC8nBxzo

2009
Invited to a Buckingham Palace Garden party
We were honoured with an invite to the queens Garden party for our charitable work
https://www.barryanddistrictnews.co.uk/news/8312302.Businessman_s_trip_to_the_Palace/?fbclid=IwAR1QHMzSAKmzug0HAMDU7GT9q8GcHZfVYoqxdpz9EWIgrKiTh6nvGfgDaJo

We carried out one of our biggest projects and run a water main into Udmulla Village and supplied all 17 houses with running water a life changing event for all concerned. Eventually we put water into 87 homes so they had running water for the first time in their life. We installed electricity into a school that was nearly a hundred years old and no electric in the school
https://www.barryanddistrictnews.co.uk/news/4773866.Barry_businessmen_on_a_mission_to_help_in_Sri_Lanka/?fbclid=IwAR2bWPARyoNWa0D9f8rZHa3FrxDzCg28RTYlCwJI_tdeVFz4Ig_eLHj8uxQ

2006

Completed the building of a new house which is now home to the Lounaris family – Samina, who at the time was aged four, and her grandfather and grandmother, following the tsunami that had devastated Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand among other countries in 2004.

The following video is our PowerPoint slideshow illustrating the charity work we carried out in Sri Lanka, enjoy: