History
Inspired by the World Hoop Day organisation, Circle of Light Hula Hoops is non-profit and has been set up with intentions to spread hoop cheer across Australia.
World Hoop Day is a non-profit organisation which was founded by Annie O Keeffe in 2007. The aims of the organisation are to give hoops away to children around the world who live in extreme poverty and under developed neighbourhoods. Every child deserves to play and to smile.
Although I don’t have any overseas travel planned for the immediate future, I feel that there are plenty of people and organizations I can gives hoops away to in my home country.
My interest in hula hooping and hula-hoop making began after attending a class with the fabulous Bunny Hoopstar of Sydney in May 2006. As much as I loved the hooping class I became quite interested in making hula-hoops. I quickly discovered that I enjoyed making hoops far more than I enjoyed using them. I became quite obsessed with hoop making and experimented with different weights, sizes and types of piping. Every town or city I travelled to (about 15 across Australia and in New Zealand) I explored as many hardware, irrigation, electrical and craft stores as I could find in case there was a new type of pipe, connector or tape I hadn’t discovered yet. I even poked around towns in Australia’s outback examining irrigation pipes to see if some of the slightly more heavy duty pipes would be suitable to use to make hula-hoops after prolonged exposure to the sun..
Soon I had so many hoops – and really there are only so many hoops one person can use! I began giving them away to my friends and frends of friends and anyone who was remotely interested in hooping. I asked for opinions on the different types of hoops I had made and finally decided on which materials made the perfect hula hoop. I continued to make hoops and give them away until one day I had one of those lightbulb moments and realised how easy it would be for me to make hoops as I travelled and give them away to various organisations. (I tend to travel around Australia quite a lot.) I decided to apply to World Hoop Day to become a hoop ambassador, and so Circle Of Light was born.