We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kim-Marie Boylan-Ray a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Kim-Marie , appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?
I grew up in a council estate in Clondalkin in Dublin, Ireland. There was many things around me I had to say no to as a child. I think my resilience started from there. When it came time to grow up my resilience was tested with love. Through that experience it made me follow and trust my gut more often in life. From there on I built up resilience towards anything that was not serving me in life.What is right for you and what is wrong for you , only you know so never be afraid to say no to protect your values and morals & always stand on YOUR business.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
Paddle with Care is my water safety non profit I began back in 2021. I started it to educate the community about water safety & to encourage people to get outside & enjoy the outdoors. Being outside & especially around water has always been calming to me, my place of peace & I want to share that feeling with others in hopes it helps improves their quality of living while being educated also about something that will always matter. We host fun events with different partners all around Utah throughout the year that are free for the community to attend. Paddle with Care is also a disposition for youth court & a partner with Utah Lake Authority & their life jacket loaner program. We make sure the life jacket stations posted around different locations are stocked for the public to use while enjoying the lake. One of our goals in the future is to have a life jacket loaner station lake to lake program across the state of Utah.
We are currently working on securing a home-base for Paddle with Care so we can have a place the community can come and learn about paddling and water safety for free.
I remember as a child not always being able to do things because of circumstances and I want families who feel like they cannot come outside for a fun day because they have no money that it is OK. Paddle with Care has you!
I am also a member of Day Won. A group of individuals based in Utah & Washington & we focus on youth, both prevention on the outside & workshops with incarnated individuals , re entry programs & resource access for adults & youth returning to community from being incarcerated. We host annual events such Back to School & Trunk or Treat & serve 100s of children every year. We are big on mentorship, sponsor youth in sports programs & other areas where furthering education is possible. Strengthening our families & communities is huge to us in Day Won, and we do a lot of work & and trainings. One of our partners are Peace Making Institute based in Seattle. With the PMI we are focusing on divisionary programs, community healing circles, along with monthly circles for women, youth, men, substance abuse and more.
Through meeting my Day Wons,I became close to another organization that is a big Day Won partner & that is Coconut Hut in Salt Lake City. Coconut Hut is a mutual aid group of 4 ladies who serve the unsheltered folks around Utah their basic survival supplies. Each lady brings something unique. We are solo runners which means we pull up to “our hut” load the boot of our cars & hit the road whenever we have a spare couple of hours & it just works. We cover more ground & more humans get love and care. We do have seasonal outreaches that we do when the public can come help & serve the community alongside us.
When I am not on the lake or boots on the ground for my community I am busy with my family and part time job. I am a wife and mother & work part time coaching teens in a residential treatment center.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
I have been through a lot in my life. Domestic violence, experiencing homelessness & also major betrayal that led to a conviction for somebody who thought it was ok to hurt my family in one of the worst possible ways I feel. I grew up in Clondalkin in Dublin, Ireland. A council estate that we referred to as a concrete jungle. We loved it though. It was not for the faint hearted & it thought me a lot. Back then, we had hardened minds as kids due to our surroundings. Three things this taught me that has impacted my journey was, never be afraid of the big bad wolf, always stand on your business no matter how hard the process & follow your gut through everything.
Advice I would have for people early in their journey is to always ask questions, be teachable & open to constructive criticism & remember that not everybody on your team is on your team so vet your people & be selected with sharing ideas. No matter what comes your way, good or bad, embrace it all and keep it moving.
One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?
We are always seeking like minded people to collaborate with. If any community members/organizations/businesses would like to partner up for a paddling day definitely reach out to us. We have our email [email protected]. We are also on Instagram & Facebook & can be found using the @paddlewithcare handle & can be messaged directly there also. We are currently looking for new equipment for the community as up until recently I have used my personal equipment and it has gotten a lot of wear and tear. I plan to paddle the 94 miles of the Utah Lake shoreline this year and do a fundraiser. Make sure you are following our social media & support that paddle.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @paddlewithcareutah
- Facebook: @paddlewithcare
