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NextSense students inspire Strikeforce Loud Shirt Day support

Staff at Melbourne company Strikeforce have held a Loud Shirt Day event every year for the past decade to raise funds for NextSense.
A group of about 16 people in brightly-coloured shirts
  • Hearing

Melbourne CEO, Matt Lloyd, reckons the resilience of NextSense deaf and hard of hearing students is the inspiration behind his staff’s 10-year passionate commitment to raising funds for the organisation through the annual Loud Shirt Day.

“A lot of our people are either new parents or probably going to be parents,” Matt explains.

“We have quite a young demographic, and I think (NextSense) really resonates as a charity or a good cause to support, because there was a lot of empathy.”

Strikeforce is a field sales and retail marketing group, headquartered in Mt Waverley, just a short drive from NextSense Blackburn in Melbourne’s east.

The company’s team has been participating enthusiastically for 10 years in Loud Shirt Day, to raise funds for NextSense .

The annual Loud Shirt Day involves workplaces, schools, families and friends wearing their loudest shirts to raise funds and awareness for children who are deaf or hard of hearing. It is celebrated by First Voice member centres across Australia and New Zealand, including NextSense.

"(NextSense) is only 10 minutes around the corner and so it was a really obvious local choice,” Matt says.

“The staff started to really engage because they saw kids coming in on Loud Shirt Day, who had been so changed by their experience (with NextSense), whether it be cochlear implants or other support.”

— Matt Lloyd
Head and shoulders shot of Matt Lloyd, who is wearing a black blazer and white shirt

He estimates the Strikeforce team has raised several tens of thousands of dollars over the decade.

“When we see the kids, we've seen the impact on what would otherwise be a significant disadvantage, and these kids are just amazing,” Matt says.

He says the Strikeforce leadership team holds a car washing event each Loud Shirt Day to raise funds.

“On the one hand it is great because we raise money but on the other hand, everyone loves to think that the CEO is washing their car, or the CFO is washing their car.

“They come when their car is especially dirty, so it makes it hard for us,” he says.

Strikeforce also matches any donations that staff make to NextSense during Loud Shirt Day.

NextSense staff held their own Loud Shirt Day events across our centres (pic below).

Photograph of four people in bright shirts

Matt isn’t only inspired by children helped by NextSense.

He recently attended an information event at NextSense, where he met adult clients with cochlear implants, including a woman in her seventies.

“What resonated was she said, for 10 years I haven't been able to really hear my grandkids and now I can hear my grandkids,” Matt says.

“She also said there's times when she doesn't want to hear her grandkids, but it was so endearing.”

Matt believes that Strikeforce staff like to work for a company that gets behind an organisation like NextSense.

“If our business can have a small force for good, then that's good."

— Matt Lloyd

“Other charities have come and gone but we haven't shied away from only charitably supporting NextSense; it's probably been our charitable focus over the last 10 years.”