Three weeks ago, our head coach Jack Evenden suffered a serious spinal cord injury during a footy game involving his C6/C7 vertebrae and ligaments surrounding.

Due to the severity of the situation, Elise has also stepped into the role of Jack’s full time carer, taking time away from work herself to support him through day-to-day life and recovery. While they sit in the unknown of what the coming months may look like, we as a community want to rally around them to help ease some of the pressure, rent, groceries, medical expenses, and all the bits in between.

So many people have reached out asking how they can help. To support Jack and Elise during this time, we’ve created this GoFundMe for our community.

If you’re in a position to contribute, no matter how small, every donation will genuinely help ease some of the pressure.

We’ll also be holding a community fundraiser breakfast over the next couple of weeks, with all proceeds going directly toward supporting Jack and Elise. Pay whatever you can — we’d simply love to bring people together to support two people who have given so much to others.

Let’s show up for the bloke that shows up for us every single day

A message from Elise:

“The past few weeks have been nothing short of challenging, but they’ve also shown us just how much love we’re surrounded by. The messages, meals, check-ins and support for Jack have meant more than I could ever put into words.

As most of you know, Jack spent just over a week in hospital after suffering a serious spinal injury during a rugby game. There was a period where we genuinely didn’t know what the outcome would be, and we still feel incredibly grateful things weren’t even worse. This is the kind of injury that has left many people paralysed, and we’re both very aware this could have been a very different story.

Since then, he’s been relearning how to walk, slowly regaining strength and movement in his arms and legs, and rebuilding confidence day by day. We now wait to see whether his body will heal on its own or whether surgery will be the next step.

Anyone who knows Jack knows how much footy, coaching, the gym and showing up for others means to him, so having his world suddenly flipped upside down has been incredibly hard. The reality is that recovery from an injury like this impacts every part of daily life. Things most of us never think twice about are now difficult, painful and exhausting. Injuries like this strip away your independence and your ability to do everyday tasks.

He’s in constant pain, heavily medicated, exhausted, and navigating the mental side of such a life-altering injury on top of the physical recovery. But in true Jack fashion, he’s still managed to keep his humour through all of it — stirring up every nurse in the hospital and making people laugh the entire way through.

Right now, the focus is simply on recovery and giving his body the best possible chance to heal. Because of that, he’s needing to take significant time away from work while we navigate what the next few months will look like.

Also very on brand for Jack, his first reaction to people wanting to donate was feeling bad accepting help at all. But the reality is that it genuinely makes the world of difference for us right now. It allows us to focus fully on his recovery without the added pressure of finances and gives us a little breathing room during a season that has changed everything very quickly.

We feel incredibly lucky to be surrounded by such a supportive community, and we thank our lucky stars every day for it”

All donations are directly to Jack & Elise to support them