The Atlas GROUP, the Polish market leader in building chemicals, cares for its financial performance but at the same time does not disregard human matters. Atlas GROUP notices those in need, left helpless by some twists of fate. A few years after the Atlas was set up, when it was gaining recognition throughout Poland, the company started receiving letters asking for support. As Roman Rojek, one of the partners in Atlas Group, recalls that time, 'Once the company became widely known, the number of letters requesting help began to increase rapidly. We then adopted the principle "nulla dies sine... pomoc" (not a day without... help). And in accordance with this Latin-Polish maxim we pulled one letter daily out of a sackful and granted the request without analysing to whom and what for. After a while we came to the conclusion that this should be done more sensibly and in 1996 we set up Fundacja Dobroczynności Atlas (Atlas Charity Foundation). It is a kind of civic tax paid by Atlas Group partners, who have been a little luckier in life then most.

Jolanta Rojek, wife of the chairman, who has been appointed chairperson of the Foundation, does not receive any salary for her work. The Foundation is supported by a large group of voluntary workers, who perceive their work for those in need as a kind of mission. Cutting costs of operation is a principle followed since the beginning of the Foundation, as it guarantees that the funds for support are not unnecessarily depleted.

The aid provided by Atlas Foundation is chiefly aimed at disadvantaged children - seriously ill, from poor families, living on the verge of destitution. Although children are given priority, assistance is also offered to the terminally ill, regardless of age. The Foundation does not accumulate money. Once a month a certain amount of money for its operation is transferred to the Foundation account by the Atlas owners and Atlas Group, the funds are then distributed among the beneficiaries. The work involved is rather unenviable and painstaking, as thousands of letters need to be read and answered, explaining the requirements which need to be met in order to qualify for financial support. Each applicant has to fill in a special form, enclose a complete documentation and forward them to the Foundation's address. Foundation staff then contact welfare centres, requesting an interview to check the credibility of each application. The information cards are for the sole use by the Foundation. From the moment of its establishment until the end of 2007 the Foundation helped 13,500 families from all regions of Poland. The amount granted depends on the situation of a particular family and the condition and needs of an invalid person since in certain cases there are several incurably ill people under one roof.

Apart from a thorough monthly review of all letters requesting support and fair distribution of funds, for several years the Foundation has been regularly providing help to five facilities: four children's homes: in Grotniki (łódzkie voiv.), Zawiercie (śląskie voiv.), Dąbrówka near Zgierz (łódzkie voiv.) and in Trzemiętowo (kujawsko-pomorskie voiv.), Special Education Centre in Pińczów (kieleckie voiv.) and a Special Schools Group in Kędzierzyn Koźle. The Schools Group has been receiving support since the memorable flood in 1997, when the building had to be completely refurbished. At that time the Foundation was sending lorry after lorry filled with necessities for those afflicted by the flood; later, the ATLAS building materials were supplied to the most severely affected gminas. Another form of assistance was the construction of five houses for flood victims. The overall amount of support granted at that time exceeded 3,000,000 PLN. Similarly, no means were spared to aid the victims of the 2001 flood in Gdańsk; Atlas Foundation was then one of the first organisations to provide assistance.

Apart from its charitable work in Poland, ATLAS Foundation organises humanitarian aid convoys, chiefly for the Poles in the East, as they have no-one to turn to - Poles living in Kazakhstan, Russia, Lithuania, Ukraine and Belarus. The convoys usually carry medicines, food and other necessities. At Christmas 1999 Foundation voluntary workers brought 5,000 modern Polish language learning textbooks, which could really open the way for the people to their mother country. There are about 9,000 Poles in Czkałów and around 100,000 in the whole Kazakhstan, only a small minority of whom know the Polish language. The Foundation also co-operated with the Gdańsk Caritas in organising aid for Polish Primary School in Egliszki in Lithuania. In September 2005 the pupils started a new school year in beautifully redecorated classrooms and labs. Both organisations met some years before, while helping the Gdańsk flood victims, and later undertook to build and run a hospice in Sopot, which has been operating since May 2004.

The idea of the hospice was developed in the Foundation, and the decision to finance the investment, amounting to 4,000,000 PLN, was taken by the Atlas Group owners. A group of people of goodwill supported the idea, from the Sopot authorities, who assigned a beautiful plot of land for this purpose, through a building crew to private sponsors, who financed the furnishing of the facility. The construction took exactly one year, and the facility was handed over to Caritas of Archdiocese of Gdansk. During the opening ceremony, the hospice founders emphasised their conviction that, thanks to Caritas staff and voluntary workers, the immense amount of suffering and anxiety involved in dying would be easier to endure.

Since the beginning of Atlas Foundation, its owners and workers have trusted that, if w cannot help all those in need, we ought to help those whose support is within our power. The support granted until September 2011 totalled more than 47.000.000 PLN.