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THE STORY
Stand up Paddle boarding for Deaf Children Australia or SUP4DCA was created as a charity event to raise much needed funds to support children with a hearing loss living in rural and remote Australia. These children and their families often need to travel to major cities in order to seek services such as educational support, developing Auslan skills (Australian sign language) as well as other fundamental learning skills. These trips can be both a timely and costly adventure for their families.
SUP4DCA hoped to raise $60,000 to donate to Deaf Children Australia's Video Outreach Program. This program allows young deaf children and their parents access to information and services through the use of Skype, reducing the burden of travelling costs for the families. Tom selected the video outreach program to benefit due to experiences in his own family.
Tom’s younger sister, Cate, was diagnosed as profoundly deaf at birth and has grown up with just a maximum of 12% of her hearing in her good ear.
After Cate’s diagnosis Tom’s parents, Jane and Pat never took a backwards step providing Cate with every opportunity she desired. Weekly twelve hour round trips to ensure Cate got the assistance she needed at an Early Intervention Centre in Melbourne, was just one of the many sacrifices the family made to provide Cate with every opportunity to reach her potential.
Whilst the KMA trip had been an unprecedented success, Tom had done all the marketing, planning and paddling himself, meaning that with some assistance there was the potential to make an even bigger impact.
Whilst living in Lake Louise, Canada in 2015, Tom formed the idea for the trip that would become SUP4DCA. Ash, a work colleague in Canada, helped get the idea ready to promote and with the backing of Deaf Children Australia, SUP4DCA became a thing.
A few months of planning and promoting, then suddenly it was time to turn the idea into reality and start the trip.
The next 113 days saw Tom set a world record as he covered the 3,800km of Australia's longest continuous river system. Read more about the trip by clicking the button below.
Tom & Cate growing up
Tom with his family at the KMA finish line
In 2014, inspired by his parent’s dedication and by seeing how incredibly well Cate had responded to that assistance, Tom formed "Kayaking the Murray for Aurora' (KMA) a fundraiser for the Aurora early intervention centre in Melbourne.
Tom completed a 40-day, 2,200km journey down Australia's longest river and was successful in raising $14,800 for Aurora. More importantly he raised awareness of the benefits of early intervention to countless people.
A dry river to start SUP4DCA wasn't part of the plan...