To see the impact your support is making have a read through our 2022/2023 Impact Report
What a HAS-tastic month September 2022 was… it was full of events but boy, did we LOVE every minute of it!
HAS Foundation was super proud to be a finalist in the Westfield West Lakes Local Heroes Campaign.
The winner was announced this month. Congratulations to Katie from Semaphore Seabirds. We loved being a part of the process, met some great people and happily came away with a $5000 grant.
This grant will be used to increase our online resource tools to further support our palliative care families.
September was an incredible month for Community Partnerships at HAS Foundation as we were lucky enough to be chosen as charity partners for some fabulous events around Adelaide.
- The Australian Doctors Orchestra’s “Live for the Moment” Concert
- The South Australia Financial Industry’s’ “The Very LOONG Lunch”
- Co-charity partner for SA’s Mid-Winter Ball
Our first ever fundraising movie night was a huge success with over 80 kids and families joining us to celebrate the release of our ambassador Taryn Brumfitt’s latest documentary “Embrace Kids”.
And we finished the month off with our favourite Graze & Raise event. We feel so lucky to have such an amazing community around us that supports our HAS events. Thank you to everyone who held their own Graze & Raise events, thank you to those who joined us at Melt Henley Beach and HUGE thank you for everyone who donated or bid in our online auction. We raised over $50 000 which we will donate to the Women’s and Children’s Hospital Foundation to continue supporting palliative care families staying at the ‘Laklinyeri’ Beach House to create memories to last a lifetime.
As always, we’d like to say a big thank you and welcome to our HAS community, both old and new, for their incredible support. We could not do what we do without you all and we are extremely grateful to have you with us supporting Paediatric Palliative families in need.
Our annual Walk with a Pal event is on November 6th… and this year, our mates at Sea Salt Henley are going to serve delicious Egg and Bacon rolls and coffee before we head off! Lock it in the calendar, it is always such a beautiful morning and a wonderful way to CONNECT and REFLECT with Pals.
To register and pre-order your breakie bun and coffee, head to the events section of our website and find the Walk with a Pal event tab.
As always, Live for the Moment. Love for a Lifetime.
Much Love,
Ella, Jarrod and Team HAS.
It certainly was a busy second part of the year for HAS Foundation. We worked on many of our usual annual events but we also started work on some exciting new projects for 2022.
So let’s take a look at what we got up to…
GRAZE AND RAISE
In September, nearly 100 of our nearest and dearest HAS supporters came together at Melt Henley for our annual Graze and Raise Luncheon.
It was a beautiful day and a great success. We raised $25,000 to support the palliative care families through the Women’s and Children’s Hospital Foundation and the beautiful memory making moments for families staying at the Laklinyeri Beach House.
We also announced the appointment of our first ever ambassador, Taryn Brumfitt from Body Image Movement.
A big thank you must go to:
- our MC (and long-time friend of HAS) Rebecca Morse for hosting our event.
- photographer Tania Gaylor for taking some photos of the event.
- Kimberlee Brown from Pop Rock Park for donating gifts for our guests on the day.
WALK WITH A PAL
November 7th saw HAS Foundation hitting the sand for our annual Walk with a Pal event at Henley Beach. We had our biggest turn out yet, with well over a hundred supporters join us for our walk, which is our biggest walk to date. We raised $3000 on the day which used to buy goodies for our Christmas bundles.
PACKING DAY
We also held our first packing day at our new warehouse facility, The Healthy Living Precinct. The HAS team together with a few volunteers packed 20 HAS Foundation care packs. Our range of care packs is growing all the time. We now have 6 different packs, peri-natal, baby, boy, girl, teen boy and teen girl.
FEED THE HEART AND SOUL
Each year, in partnership with Scoffed Cooking School and Kids in Philanthropy, we run our Feed the Heart and Soul cooking programs through the school holidays. In October, an amazing group of 16 future change-makers, came together to learn some cooking skills and made some super nutritious, healthy meals. We made Lasagne and Chocolate brownies, which have been delivered to Laklinyeri beach house. These meals are just what the doctor ordered for palliative care families to use while staying at the beach house.
SAINTS BOYS FUND GOGGLE DONATION
An amazing group of boys from Saint Peters Boys College held a fundraiser to support HAS Foundation.
For over 3/12 hours, 15 boys from the first Water Polo team swam 5050 laps of the school pool, which turns out to be 127kms. Each of them fundraised through individual GoFund me pages to help families they’ve never met… and together they raised nearly $12,000.
As a result, HAS Foundation was able to purchase and donate 2 pairs of “Smiley Scope” VR goggles to the Palliative Care unit at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital. The Smiley Scope goggles are a virtual reality headset for patients to wear during a procedure to reduce patients’ pain and anxiety.
CHRISTMAS CARE BUNDLES
Our team went BIG for Christmas last year. We packed up 50 Christmas Care bundles, jam packed with amazing goodies, including an Oodie for each of our families. We just loved doing this and being able to spread some extra holiday joy to our beautiful palliative care families this year.
100 REASONS FOR 100KMS
At the end of last year, HAS Foundation was approached by local Adelaide businessman Stephen Warner from Finance Partners as he wanted to organise a fund-raising bike ride and that’s exactly what he did! He and 14 of his mates rode 100kms through the Adelaide Hills and raised a whopping $22,500 for HAS Foundation in the process. We called the ride 100 Reasons for 100Kms, the 100 reasons representing the number of families that are referred to the Women’s and Children’s Palliative Care Service. We were absolutely blown away by this. It was such an amazing day and we loved welcoming the boys across the finish line on Christmas eve morning to thank them.
It was an amazing year at HAS Foundation. As always, thank you to everyone who supported us. We’ve got another busy year ahead and we’re super excited to do it all again and then some in 2022.
Live for the Moment
We are so proud to present you with our first Impact Report.
When you donate to the HAS Foundation, we want you to know what we use your funds for and how we are stewards of your giving.
In this Impact Report, you will see some of our Key Celebrations as well as stories and photos of the year that’s been.
We are proud as punch of all that’s been achieved in this last year and we look forward to what the next 12 months will bring.
Thank you for partnering with us and making all this possible.
Much love,
Ella and Jarrod
Wow! Words cannot describe the magic we felt in the room at our HAS Foundation Mother’s Day Luncheon last week.
On Thursday afternoon, 284 HAS supporters came together at the beautiful SkyCity ballroom to celebrate mums and raise money to support our work. There was electricity in the air as people met, laughed, enjoyed lunch, and raised vital funds to help families in Paediatric Palliative Care.
Drum roll, please……!
We are thrilled to announce, that we raised over $80,000 to bring our next dream to life - a modified vehicle that can assist families to transport their seriously ill children to hospital, outings, and other appointments.
A heartfelt and tearful THANK YOU to each person who came along to the event, bid on an auction item, bought a raffle ticket, sponsored the event, donated and generally made the event what it was.
Much more than just a charity lunch, we felt the joy as the Tutti Arts Choir stunned the room with their incredible voices and hearts. Next up Taryn Brumfit absolutely inspired us with her take on embracing life and living for the moment. Rebecca Morse was our MC extraordinaire and gave us laughs and sincerity as she interviewed Sara, a Paediatric Palliative Care nurse who looks after families like ours.
One of our favourite (and most overwhelming) moments was when we asked for 20 people to stand up and purchase a $400 care pack for a family and 35 people stood up, raising $14,000! Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.
Your donations, including a special $20,000 gift from the Hospital Research Foundation will go towards helping us bring our transport program to life. This is not just about a van that can go from one place to another, but about creating a whole fun experience for a family who are isolated and need to get out and about but would struggle to do it without help.
Over the next 12 months, we will be working on getting this program up and running, including:
- sourcing a vehicle
- getting it modified and ready for wheelchair access
- wrapping it in customised and fun stickers
- working out plans to facilitate the program
- creating a group of volunteer drivers
- liaising with the Women’s and Children’s Hospital team and so much more.
We love that this is an ongoing project that will benefit families for years to come. THANK YOU.
We know Hunter would have been so proud of all of us for coming together to help seriously ill children and their families.
Thank you all again and if you were not able to attend the event and would like to make a donation, or if you did attend the event and felt moved to make a donation, you can do so right here. Wouldn’t it be amazing to get to $100,000 before the end of the financial year?
We also want to take a moment to thank our amazing sponsors. If you want to work with heart-centred people who walk the walk and talk the talk, please get in touch with one of our sponsors for your needs.
Major donors and sponsors:
- Hamilton wines
- Toop and Toop
- Stratco
- 23rd St Distillery
- Bickfords
- Plant Resort
- Indy Rose Flowers
- Holidays of Australia
- Villa Beach Palm Cove
- Channel 7
- Sealink
- Africola
- Golden Boy
- Forage Supple Co
- Gastronomo dining
- Snellings View
- Class A jewellers
- 5AA
- One Rundle Trading
- Coriole wines
- The Source
- Wirra Wirra
- Melt Hyde Park
- Nomade Collection
- The Bird Cage
- Saint Garde
- Mr Riggs Wine Co
- Rebecca Morse
- Taryn Brumfit
- Tutti Arts Choir
- KT Buzz Duo
Sponsors:
- Hashtag Instaprints
- On the Table Events
- Top Knot Marketing
- Drummer Marketing
As parents, we all want to teach our kids to be kind and to help others. Enter, our ‘Feed the Heart and Soul’ program. This incredibly special program helps children learn new cooking skills while playing a small but significant role in supporting families that are going through one of the hardest journeys in their life.
Run in partnership with Kids in Philanthropy and hosted at Scoffed Cooking School, kids from around Adelaide get together in the holidays to have a unique cooking lesson and cook delicious food that is then donated to families who have children in Paediatric Palliative Care.
The October holidays saw 17 kids give of their time, treasure and talent and cook 96 freezer-friendly meals. 
In December, the focus was all about Christmas and we had 20 kids bake Christmas treats that were packed into surprise Christmas hampers and delivered to our families.
These heartfelt home-cooked meals and treats always bring comfort to families who are cared for by the Women’s and Children’s Hospital Palliative Care staff and those staying at the Women’s & Children’s Hospital Foundation Beach House.
A very special thank you has to go to the team at CMV group who not only funded the launch of this program but also supported both holiday programs in 2020.
Personally, we are so grateful for their ongoing support because we know the impact it can make on families.
We were blessed to have people prepare meals for us when Hunter was in the hospital and after he passed. It always left us feeling so cared for and thankful during such a scary and painful time. We are passionate about passing on this gift to other families.
Keep an eye out for the next ‘Feed the Heart and Soul program’ and we can’t wait to welcome your kids into our community of change-makers.
Ella and Jarrod
Thank you, thank you, thank you for supporting our ‘18 for 18’ campaign in December last year.
We lost Hunter over 6 years ago, at the age of 12 and as we approached his 18th birthday, we knew the day would be an emotional one for our family.
We would give anything to be celebrating with him, but instead, we gathered our family and friends and hosted an 18th party Hunter would be proud of!
As part of the celebrations, we launched our ‘18 for 18’ campaign, asking you to donate $18 in honour of Hunter’s 18th.
What happened next blew us away as watched donation after donation come in from $18 to $180 to over $1,000 to help families who are going through what we went through. YOU, our generous supporters, raised over $8,500 to help South Australian families in Paediatric Palliative Care. Thank you!
Your donations, messages, ‘shares’ and ‘likes’ all help us spread the word and help ease some of the
isolation these families feel.
So, from the bottom of our hearts, we say a tearful yet joyful, THANK YOU!
Ella and Jarrod
And to Hunter - We miss you every single day. We hope you are proud of the impact you’re having on so many families and we hope you enjoyed watching your celebrations from above. We love you.
2019 started with a goal. We set ourselves a New Years resolution in the way of a word. ACTION – Our first year has had plenty of action. Thanks to you.
This week is our birthday week, and we would like to say a huge thank you to you for supporting our Foundation. We are very grateful for the opportunities we have had with amazing people. Fabulous organisations and businesses who have helped us pave our way in the non-profit arena.
The Advertiser Foundation with the beautiful Angela Condous, jumped on board to support us straight away. We raised $20,000 at our first-ever function for Melbourne Cup last year.
A second function supported by the Advertiser Foundation was our Mother’s Day function. It was a huge success, a great day full of entertainment and also raised a whopping $75,000!
Lock in May the 7th 2020 for the next Advertiser Foundation lunch.
With personal donations and businesses and companies donating to us via fundraisers or social groups we have collectively raised over $130,000 in our first year. Whoo Hooo – Thank you.
If you or your business would like to support us as your chosen charity in the future, we would love to chat with you further.
Below is a summary of the projects we have been working on this year.
Care Packs
We have been busy preparing, ordering and sourcing products for the Care Packs for Paediatric Palliative Care families. These packs are for when a family is first referred to the service.
The packs are full of useful items for families when they are in the hospital and for the long days at home caring for a critically ill child.
* Keep cups for coffee’s
* Reusable drink bottles
* Compendium to keep and take Doctors notes.
* Toys, books, puzzles and games
* Phone chargers
* Dinner vouchers
* Petrol and Supermarket vouchers
* Zoo passes
* Movie passes
* Quick meals
* Plus some bespoke items to suit each families needs
If you have a business or product you think would be great for the Care packs, please get in contact as we love new ideas and new goodies to share. Or if you or your company would like to sponsor a pack we would love to hear from you.
Women’s and Children’s Hospital Foundation’s Beach House
We have been thrilled to support the beautiful Beach house project.
Laklinyeri Beach house has been a fantastic project to be apart of for the past four years. The dream has become a reality, and it is finished ready for families to enjoy, create memories and have some precious relaxing time to together as a family.
HAS Foundation’s philosophy is:
LIVE FOR THE MOMENT, LOVE FOR A LIFETIME.
We are all about creating memories, so we will be funding a photographer to shoot a photo session with the families while they are staying at the beach house, as a special memory to keep forever. Photos are so precious when it’s all you have left.
Palliative Care Hospital Room Restyle
The amazing Palliative Care team asked us to help part-fund a restyle of a room in the hospital for families to spend time together with their child once they have passed away to say goodbye. It will make a big difference for families, being able to be in a soft, gentle space to grieve. We are proud to have been involved.
“Feed the Heart and Soul”
The future programs that we are working on are “Feed the Heart and Soul” which will supply families with comforting home-cooked meals after a hospital stays or after their child has passed. We were fortunate enough to have a beautiful community around us that did this for us, so we wish to provide that for other families.
Wheelchair Accessible Vehicle
2020’s significant goal is to have a wheelchair accessible vehicle to help families easily get to appointments. Watch this space!!!
Thank you for being part of our founding year. We are so excited to share what we have been up to and our goals or the future.
If you feel like you would like more information about supporting the HAS Foundation or to get in touch, please don’t hesitate we would love to hear from you.
Finally, you are more than welcome to duck over to our website to donate any 1st birthday cheer!!!!
Thank you again, for your time and support, we look forward to seeing you soon.
Sometimes life takes you down a path where you meet the most beautiful and kind people. This happened to me recently at an event held by the Women’s and Children’s’ Hospital Foundation where Lauren was the MC. Thank you to Lauren and Hayley and the Adelady team for taking the time to interview me and publish the below blog on their website.
You can read more of their fabulous Blogs here.
Originally featured on Adelady – written by Millie Looker and Lauren De Cesare
Sometimes you meet people, and they instantly become a friend… you see a special spark in them that draws you in. That’s what I felt when I first met Ella. I was MCing a very special high tea at Adelaide Oval with the Golden Angels, raising money for the Women’s and Children’s Hospital Foundation.
A blurry photo of me and my new friend, Ella (far left).
My job that day was to interview two women who had lost their children to rare diseases. It was incredibly emotional, but I’m so grateful that I got the chance to be a part of it because it lead me to this very special lady who I admire, respect and feel that if there were more people on this earth like her, the world would be a better place.
This Inspirational Adelady is the creator of a hugely successful charity — the HAS Foundation, which was started in memory of her eldest son, Hunter Alfred Stratton. Ella Stratton is a mum of three boys, who has faced some incredibly difficult times and continued on to create something beautiful, that will help hundreds of families in the years to come.
The HAS Foundation‘s motto is “live for the moment, love for a lifetime”, which is a message we all need to live by. We are so humbled by you, Ella — thank you for sharing your story and being an inspirational Adelady.
Lauren xx
My name is Ella Stratton, I am a mother of 3 amazing boys. Hunter 16, Tex 13, Oakley 10. I am married to a man I had a crush on when I was 7 and we’ve been together for over 22 years.
I am a Wife and Mother first but have volunteered with various charities for around 6 years, been on the school Parents & Friends Committee’s the whole time my boys have been at school and now have embarked on a new adventure of starting and running our own foundation, raising money for Paediatric Palliative Care families.
We started the HAS Foundation (Hunter Alfred Stratton) late last year after we lost our eldest son Hunter over 4 years ago.
Hunter was born a beautiful, healthy baby in Christ Church, New Zealand.
At 8 weeks of age, we started noticing some funny signs which we found out were seizures.
After 3 weeks in hospital over in N.Z, we needed to come home to be with family and needed more support from the Woman’s and Children’s Hospital.
Hunter had to be fully sedated and we had a medical team retrieve us on a private plane to fly us home.
The next 11-year journey with Hunter had many highs and lows. In and out of the hospital, many specialist and therapist appointments, and many scary procedures. But luckily we also had many amazing fun family adventures that we pushed to take him on.
Plus we were blessed with two more baby boys, which enriched our lives, filled our broken hearts and made us feel like a normal family.
2. What’s your daily mantra?
My daily mantra came from watching too many kids movies while being at home with 3 young boys. Dory from Finding Nemo is so happy and cheerful even though things are overwhelming and tough. So “keep on swimming” is what I have said to myself over and over again when times seem tough. You can’t give up, you just have to keep moving forward.
3. What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?
I have had so many people give great advice over the years, but the simplest are often the best.
“If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say it at all”.
I think kindness is the key to everything.
4. Who is the person that you look up to the most?
I have always looked up to my Grandma who is 90 years young, still cooking, cleaning, gardening and works hard for her local community fundraising.
Her family has always come first and she has always held her head high, helped others, and been so strong through difficult times in her life.
The other biggest inspiration is my eldest son Hunter.
He had so much against him and he hardly ever complained, was just so happy to be with people and listen. He taught me so much about compassion, strength, what matters most and love.
5. What’s your favourite place in SA?
We love going to the river to ski, relax and spend family time together, it is so beautiful on the river. Middleton and Port Elliott are also a summer favourite. The beaches, shops and community down there is always a lot of fun. There are so many great places to hire these days.
6. When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up?
When I was little I wanted to be famous like lots of little kids!
I modelled from around 13 years old and wanted to be a 90’s supermodel, but didn’t grow tall enough. I also used to go to dress-up parties as a bride as all I wanted to do was get married and have babies. So I guess one dream came true!!
7. We love to celebrate the little wins. What is one of your greatest achievements?
Starting the HAS Foundation has been a huge achievement. I had been a stay at home Mum for 17 years so pushing myself out of my comfort zone to get a board together, hold meetings and put together events was very daunting.
Since starting in August 2018 we have raised over $100,000 to help support the Paediatric Palliative care service here in SA. We are starting up some programs ourselves plus supporting various other charities who provide a service for these families doing it really tough.
8. What advice would you have for other people going through a hard time?
The advice I would give anyone with a sick child like we had would be to find out more about the Palliative care service. We all think it means the last few days or weeks of life but it is actually about creating life!
Knowing that you do have limited time, months, years or even decades together doesn’t mean its time to give in, its time to make the best of every minute.
I think that goes for all families, take as many photos as you can, go away together, create memories and even when we all have bad days and get grumpy try and remember how lucky you are to have loved ones and to make the most of every day together.
Back Row: – Ella and Jarrod Stratton
Front Row: – Oakley, Hunter, and Tex
Recently, Palliative Care SA kindly asked us to share our story in their latest newsletter. Here is the piece I shared with them.
All I ever wanted was to be a Mum, on the 29th December 2002, my wish came true.
Hunter Alfred Stratton was born a beautiful healthy 7.6 lb baby boy.
We enjoyed 8 weeks of newborn baby bliss, thinking I was so clever making this beautiful little thing, I couldn’t wait to take him out and show him off to the world.
While out walking I noticed strange noises and Hunter looking very odd. After multiple Doctor and hospital visits, we were told Hunter had Benign Infantile Seizures.
Heartbroken and scared, we were reassured Hunter would grow out of his seizures by two and would need mild epileptic medication to keep his seizures under control until then.
Home we went with our eight-week-old baby boy, ready to face a new journey, but terrified. Little did we know what more was to come.
Hunter’s seizures increased and the hospital in Christchurch New Zealand was not able to find out what, why, or how. We spent two weeks, trialing and testing, with his condition worsening rapidly and a nursing error of an overdose given when we decided to return home to Adelaide and the care of the Woman’s and Children’s Hospital.
The next six months were spent with further testing, with no clear answers why and Hunter’s seizures were increasing to over one hundred some days.
We slowly learned this was our new normal and had to navigate the journey ahead caring for our severely disabled, complex needs boy.
Living as best life as possible with Hunter, going away on holidays, going to school, playing with his two younger brothers at age 10 his body really started to weaken further.
Hunter’s health needs became more complex and I felt I was losing the battle trying to care for him. I reached out to the Paediatric Palliative care team at the hospital.
Straight away their care, knowledge, and understanding was amazing, and exactly what we needed for the next stage of Hunter’s journey.
Two years with the Palliative Care service was the start of the hardest years of our lives. We cared for Hunter with their guidance until the time came that we had to finally say goodbye to our beautiful boy at nearly 12 years old.
A time that broke our hearts forever and took a long time to find our new normal. To realise we have to do something in Hunter’s honour and help others going through the worst thing a parent should ever have to endure.
The HAS (Hunter Alfred Stratton) Foundation was born. We knew we understood the little things families need. We knew the Paediatric Palliative care team did an incredible job, but we wanted to help support them in new ways. We raised over $95,000 in our first year thanks to so many generous kind-hearted people. We decided that care packs when families are first referred to Palliative Care would be a good idea, as it is the most heart-wrenching thing to go through and we wanted to show we are here for families and we understand and care.
We have given out around 25 packs valued at over $400 with items for every family member, games, toys, practical items and pamper packs plus vouchers for food, movies, Netflix, Adelaide Zoo, restaurants, and more.
We can not change or fix these families journeys ahead but our aim is to help families create memories together, make their journey that bit more gentle and help them know that we get it and we are here to help.
We are working closely with the team at the Woman’s and Children’s Hospital to support their needs to easily get the care packs to families. We pay for couriers to get packs to regional families. Whenever the Palliative Care service calls and needs something, we are there to help.
We have donated $20,000 to the Woman’s and Children’s Hospital Foundation’s Lakinyeri beach house. This money is going towards families staying at the house enjoying memories and making moments. We provide a photo session, surf lessons, massages, meals out, whatever they wish to do with their respite holiday time at the beach house. We plan to continue this donation each year.
We have big plans for the future of HAS growing to support families’ needs with a podcast to share stories, a volunteer-driven car for families to get to appointments plus bespoke items when a family just needs help when times are unbearable.
If you would like to find out more and help us to contribute to and support Paediatric Palliative Care families please visit our website www.hasfoundation.org.au
HAS will turn 2 on August the 8th so we are only very new but we hope to make a big difference in the future and help families.
Live in the moment and Love for a Lifetime