Our road to recovery

Hi everyone, who are we?

Robbie, Linzi, Amiria, Jorja, our amazing staff, our incredible members and their families, together we are Ako Martial Arts.

We need your help so we can continue to help our community in the best way we know how. 

Our small family business is trying our best to get back on our feet after the February flooding. Like a lot of people we were severely impacted by the Feb floods here in QLD both our business and our home. Right now we are still battling to rebuild our small family business to ensure we can continue to provide a safe, nurturing environment for our community.

We run martial arts classes for ages 2 through to adults but more importantly we foster an environment where everyone is welcome, everyone is treated with respect and everyone is equal. When you walk through the doors you become part of a family who love and respect you for you, not what you have or where your from.

Prior to the floods closing our building down we were training with 100+ m2 of training area. Post floods we have trained with as little as 15m2 and at most 50m2 just to try and keep our business running and ensure there was a place for our BJJ family to go. The closest BJJ gyms are at least 20 minutes from us which is why it is critical for us to keep our doors open for those unable to travel. We have also worked hard to build our community and to lose it all would be devastating to our business and ourselves personally.

To date, our original building has not yet been fixed since the February flooding and is still empty waiting to be stripped. This inevitably left us searching for a new premise to operate from within our community. We have been lucky enough to meet an amazing local who has leased his building to us but we are now in the process of fitting out the building as well as restocking equipment to allow us to operate again at full capacity.

We were lucky enough to receive a small insurance claim which has covered some equipment including new mats

but isn’t nearly enough to help aid in the replacement of stock nor a completely new fit out. We still have lots to do including flooring, wall bracing, and installing a shower for members.

It’s not easy to ask for help when you know you're not the only one who was dealt this card however we are putting every cent we have into rebuilding because we know how important it is for our BJJ community/family and for us to keep our doors open so here we are asking for your help to finish off the fit out of the gym so we can get back up and running on a full timetable.

If you can spare anything for our small family business and our community we would be so grateful.

https://www.facebook.com/akomartialartssandgate/