In a world where we are told more of our limitations, we want to be the place where kids are told of their potential.
Our Core Purpose
Fit-kicks helps children feel; Capable, Valued and happy.
In order to tell you the Fit-Kicks story, we need to tell you the story of our founder Carlo Chincarini.
This is his story and the story of Fit-Kicks, in his own words.
The Fit-Kicks story is closely aligned with my own story, so here we go. I grew up in a small town in Italy, called Verona and moved to Australia when I was 14.
Growing up, my childhood was shaped by 3 things, food, sport and school.
[Before I continue, I just want to point out that I was raised in the most loving, caring and supportive family anyone could ever have. I had everything and more. So I’m not going to pretend I didn’t have running water or i lived on the streets the opposite. I was your everyday kid that on appearance/ surface had it all. Which made it too easy to be looked over and assumed that everything was going smoothly in my little head]
I loved food and with so much good food around I remember being that kid that would go back from seconds, thirds and sometimes more! I also loved sport, it was the highlight of my day and week. For me ‘sport’ was soccer. I lived and breathed it.
School however was never a positive place for me. Although I loved going to school, because I loved my friends, school was very much a dark place.
I vividly remember the feelings of fear, anxiety, pressure and stress around going to school.
Truthfully, I wasn’t a saint, I made loads of mistakes but my teachers were never the supportive mentor-like role models that I kid like me needed at the time.
With school grades being poor, I started believing that who I was as a person, my self worth, was attached to my grades.
If grades were good, then I was good and if they were poor then that would reflect on my self esteem.
Sport was the game changer for me. It played a massive role in not just getting me through the weeks but also providing me with a safe place, an even playing field where no one cared about my school grades, it was about playing the sport we loved. I was able to completely be me. It made me feel wanted, capable of doing great things, that I belonged and that I was good enough.
Fast forward to the end of year, 12 and I had just finished my last VCE exam and like most 18 year olds had all sorts of questions and stresses about my future, ‘what kind of uni course would I go in, what will my life look like?’
We travelled back to Italy for the first time since moving and I found myself walking around the same streets that I grew up on and standing at the fence of that same soccer pitch that provided me with so much. It was in that moment that Fit-Kicks was created.
Like a light bulb switching, the smells and the sounds of that place came flooding back and it was almost as if I was looking on at myself all those years ago, I remembered what sport and my coaches did for me, the role they played in my life. Right there and then I knew what I was meant to do with my life.
In that moment I just knew that I needed to create a place where sport would be the safe place for us to help kids feel capable, valued and happy.
Since 2011, we’ve been on our journey to refine this vision, passion and dream. The program has evolved from being a Soccer & fitness program to a Gross Motor Skills Program, to a multi-sport program and finally to what it is now, a Confidence Program.
This is our story.
This is FitKicks.