In the beginning...

Ashlee Garwood
Aug 28, 2016
2 min read

I thought it was time to tell my side of the story……

“You do marketing, don’t you?” Tom asked. I replied, “yeah well that’s what I’ve studied for,” completely oblivious as to where the conversation was going. Tom then explained his idea to stand up paddleboard Australia’s longest continuous waterway. After taking a minute to process I honestly thought…good luck to him! At the time, I’m pretty sure I even said that. Tom then explained his previous trip, kayaking the length of the Murray River for Aurora I soon realised he was serious.

I thought I would help design and construct the website and give a few odd social media tips and that would be all. I didn’t realise how emotionally involved and passionate I would become. Especially once Tom told me about his childhood, growing up with a sister who was deaf and the sacrifices the family made, it instantly resonated with me. In a similar way my family had to seek special education for my sister who is dyslexic. On a frequent basis we would have to travel to Adelaide to seek these services.

In the beginning I was very skeptical, it was a great idea but I was unsure if it was realistic. Tom and I had countless late night’s going back and forth on different ideas and strategies to make SUP4DCA a success. We decided the next step was to see if anyone else thought it was a good idea. Luckily Deaf Children Australia’s Development and Fundraising Manager, Noel Henderson did. With numerous overseas phone calls we were fortunate enough to receive Deaf Children Australia’s (DCA) full support.

With that it was time to decide on a name and logo, still to this day, I swear that has been the hardest part. Trying to get Tom and I to agree on name and logo was almost impossible. We finally arrived at the name of Stand Up Paddle boarding for Deaf Children Australia or better known as SUP4DCA. Please see below for some of our initial logo/name ideas.

Over the last few months we at SUP4DCA have come a long way. What started out as nothing more than an idea has blossomed into, two extremely passionate people trying to help make a difference in the lives of rural and remote families, with children who are deaf.