Rainbow Roos didn’t begin with a business plan or a grand idea to build an organisation. It started with a simple belief that there had to be a different way for children to experience sport.
A way where fun mattered more than winning, children weren’t compared with one another, and different abilities, personalities or support needs weren’t barriers to taking part.
Sometimes success could simply mean joining in, trying something new or leaving with a smile.
Everyone deserves the chance to play, belong and have fun.
Where It All Started
Rainbow Roos began in Lismore in April 2024 with just one weekly session and one simple idea: take away the pressure and put the enjoyment back in.
Children wouldn’t need to make a team, keep up with everyone else or already be good at soccer. They could simply turn up, be themselves and enjoy playing.
It didn’t take long to realise that plenty of other families had been looking for exactly the same thing.
Then Something Happened…
More families came. New sessions opened. New coaches joined the team.
But more importantly, we started meeting children who hadn’t found their place in traditional sport. Children joining their first ever group activity, families looking for somewhere without judgement or pressure, and young people discovering that being active could actually be something they enjoyed.
The bigger Rainbow Roos became, the clearer our purpose became too.
From One Session…
APRIL 2024
One weekly after-school session in Lismore.
TODAY
30+ inclusive sessions every week.
OUR COMMUNITY
350+ participants attending every week.
OUR REACH
Northern Rivers, Gold Coast & Brisbane.
Rainbow Roos Today
Today, Rainbow Roos is an award-winning registered charity with a growing team delivering programs for toddlers, children, teenagers and adults.
Our work now reaches far beyond weekly soccer sessions. We support NDIS participants, work with schools and early learning centres, run community and holiday programs, deliver adult programs and bring inclusive activities to events of all sizes.
We’ve grown enormously, but becoming bigger has never been the goal. Reaching more people who need what we provide is.
Some Things Haven’t Changed
We still put fun before performance. We still adapt what we’re doing when someone needs something different. Our coaches are still encouraged to be creative, energetic and occasionally very silly.
And we’re still far more interested in confidence, connection and smiles than scoreboards.
We don’t expect people to fit Rainbow Roos. We make Rainbow Roos fit the people who come to us.
From Lismore, With Bigger Ambitions
Lismore and the Northern Rivers will always be home. It’s where Rainbow Roos started, where families backed an unknown little program and where our community helped shape what it became.
Now we’re taking those same principles into new communities, building new partnerships and finding new ways to remove the barriers that stop people participating.
Where We’re Going
Our ambition isn’t simply to run more soccer sessions. We want to keep programs affordable, reach communities that might otherwise miss out and create more opportunities for people to participate in a way that works for them.
And ultimately, our biggest dream is one we’ve had from the beginning.
“We dream of a world where organisations like ours don’t need to exist.”
A world where inclusion isn’t something special that has to be created. It’s simply how things are done.
Until then, we’ll keep doing our bit. One session, one community and one smile at a time.