Saying it loud on Loud Shirt Day

Pumpkin Patch founder Sally Synnott supports the Loud Shirt Day fundraiser for deaf education. Photo / Brett Phibbs

It's hard to imagine the elegant Sally Synnott wearing a loud shirt.

We are sitting in the Pumpkin Patch founder's newly redecorated Auckland apartment, her latest creative project, where she is advocating throwing taste to the winds and getting in behind Loud Shirt Day, the annual fundraising event for deaf education charity The Hearing House.

The businesswoman, whose once small company selling children's clothing via catalogue now spans over 250 stores and six countries, has been persuaded to give a rare media interview only because of her passion for the charity.

She has been on the board of The Hearing House for eight years, following in the footsteps of her father who got involved through cochlear implant pioneer and family friend Sir Patrick Eisdell Moore.

The Hearing House teaches deaf children who receive cochlear implants how to listen and speak. The implant is only the first step, Synnott says. "If you just give a kid a cochlear implant and don't do anything else they're actually no more likely to speak or hear."

Children can be taught to speak normally and there are impressive success stories. Auckland teenager Joshua Foreman who first received an implant as a toddler won a speech prize and has learned Spanish, Synnott says. "They often get way above the expectations for their age."

Fundraising has got tougher since the recession and most charities rely on only three or four main corporate sponsors. You try to spread your base but New Zealand's small, she says. Having a 6 per cent shareholding in and directorship of a major publicly listed company doesn't cut any swathe. "I'm just in line with everyone else when it comes to getting money out of Pumpkin Patch," she smiles.

Although Pumpkin Patch is no longer her day-to-day baby, the business still gives her a buzz, she says.

The difficult economic times have been positive for the company, she argues.

"The team pulled together even tighter - it's probably just our culture."

Like many retailers it has put its inventory levels and debt under the thumb. Australia has been a bright spot."It all looks good for us from here. But nobody knows when it's suddenly going to swing up."

Would she start another business again? "I wish I had that sort of energy.

"I love doing anything creative, pouring myself into something like this (she indicates around the apartment)."

But memories of long hours put in to the fledgling Pumpkin Patch haven't died, and family and the charity work are priorities.

She and husband Mark have a small private charity which helps underprivileged South Auckland children with university and other tuition fees.

Synnott has also recently joined the board of the NZ Spinal Trust which helps rehabilitate those with spinal cord injuries.

Meeting its chairman through a mutual friend and incidents in which her sister and a Pumpkin Patch colleague both suffered back injuries inspired her to act.

She simply likes being involved. "A lot of the people I have met, they are the most alive people. I don't know whether they learn something from not being able to do everything that everyone else can."

While she describes revelations of how much some charities spend on administration as "pretty horrific", she says there is a conundrum in hiring skilled people to do charity work.

"You can sort of kick things off in the first place with things all being done for love, for two to three years. After that people can't just keep giving."

The message she would like to get across as she considers the (probably very tasteful) loud shirt she will wear on September 18 is: "If times are tough for us, how tough are they for people who have more difficulties?"

* www.loudshirtday.co.nz