It felt good. No, check that. It felt great. The SUP community got together and paddled for Raelyn. We were a part of something big, a fundraising drive for a four year old girl battling acute lymphoblastic leukemia. And it was AWESOME!
Raelyn is the daughter of Greg and Rebecca Beckler and is on some potent daily chemotherapy and steroid tablets, among others, and has probably seen more hospitals than swing sets in local parks. After speaking with Greg, Shane Perrin (Live Love SUP Brand Ambassador) put out the call to the world SUP community and the collective "we" responded. Shane asked us all to put on a fundraising event that coincided with his mammoth 24 hour ultra skate race in which he was land paddling and fundraising for Raelyn. Once this call went out, people responded across the US and from us in Abu Dhabi.
Live Love SUP held a Stand Up for Raelyn event at Yas Marina in sunny Abu Dhabi. The event consisted of teams of 4 paddling 400m laps for 4 hours and donating 400 dirhams (local currency) for each team (All fours for little 4 year old Raelyn).
Twelve teams answered the call from Abu Dhabi and Dubai. We had teams from the Abu Dhabi Stand Up Paddle Club, two teams organized by our Dubai based Live Love SUP Brand Ambassador Tati and her Kiki Team, two teams by Spartan AD and a Surf Dubai team.
These teams competed with each other for lap honours and also challenges completed. We assigned certain tasks to the teams as they paddled round and each team took to each challenge with gusto! Paddlers had to paddle the board backwards, paddle on the left side only, do a 360 turn around each of the three buoys, paddle with one person sitting on the front, paddle with the paddler blind folded but the person sitting giving directions and all four team members paddling a lap on the Naish Inflatable SUP Island.
In the end, the teams raised a lot of money but also we as Live Love SUP gave 1 dirham for each lap completed by all teams totaling just over $1400 US. Rene Miller and the Women's SUP Racing team also dontated USD$250 for the cause too in SUPport of Raelyn and Live Love SUP.
Raelyn is the daughter of Greg and Rebecca Beckler and is on some potent daily chemotherapy and steroid tablets, among others, and has probably seen more hospitals than swing sets in local parks. After speaking with Greg, Shane Perrin (Live Love SUP Brand Ambassador) put out the call to the world SUP community and the collective "we" responded. Shane asked us all to put on a fundraising event that coincided with his mammoth 24 hour ultra skate race in which he was land paddling and fundraising for Raelyn. Once this call went out, people responded across the US and from us in Abu Dhabi.
Live Love SUP held a Stand Up for Raelyn event at Yas Marina in sunny Abu Dhabi. The event consisted of teams of 4 paddling 400m laps for 4 hours and donating 400 dirhams (local currency) for each team (All fours for little 4 year old Raelyn).
Twelve teams answered the call from Abu Dhabi and Dubai. We had teams from the Abu Dhabi Stand Up Paddle Club, two teams organized by our Dubai based Live Love SUP Brand Ambassador Tati and her Kiki Team, two teams by Spartan AD and a Surf Dubai team.
These teams competed with each other for lap honours and also challenges completed. We assigned certain tasks to the teams as they paddled round and each team took to each challenge with gusto! Paddlers had to paddle the board backwards, paddle on the left side only, do a 360 turn around each of the three buoys, paddle with one person sitting on the front, paddle with the paddler blind folded but the person sitting giving directions and all four team members paddling a lap on the Naish Inflatable SUP Island.
In the end, the teams raised a lot of money but also we as Live Love SUP gave 1 dirham for each lap completed by all teams totaling just over $1400 US. Rene Miller and the Women's SUP Racing team also dontated USD$250 for the cause too in SUPport of Raelyn and Live Love SUP.
