A celebration of Louise Rogers

In memory of Louise Rogers, 23 August 1970 – 3 December 2022

Before we get back to our regular blog posts – and we’ve got some fantastic posts lined up for 2023, many of them created or organised by Louise last year – I wanted to share a few words that I was honoured to say at Louise’s funeral, about her work with, and love for, Equipp:

“For the last five years, Louise and I worked together to create a business, Equipp, that designs uplifting gifts for teenagers. Louise was passionate about our little business, never failing to give it energy, enthusiasm and focus.

Louise was born to work in retail. She had an amazing instinct for what our customers were looking for and a real eye for innovation and trends. She loved interacting with customers, suppliers, and other small business owners. And she was superb at it. She particularly loved to chat with our customers on email and social media, and the fact that we have so many loyal customers is due to her.

Louise wanted to do more than just create gifts to inspire and encourage teenagers. She introduced me to Hector’s House, a brilliant teenage mental health charity, and we donate a percentage of every sale to them. But Louise didn’t stop there. She was committed to celebrating and supporting teenagers in every way we could and was – justifiably – so very proud of the online community we built that did just that.

The outpouring of love for her on social media in the last few weeks has been phenomenal. A constant comment was “her words of wisdom”; she helped and supported so many people that never knew her in real life. Her parenting tip videos, heartfelt blogs and carefully worded posts were seen and admired by so many. She would have loved and been touched beyond words to read comments such as this one: “In my deepest days of parenting I came across Equipp and often used your resources. Thanks so much for your help!”

Working with your best friend is an absolute joy and I feel so privileged to have done just this for the last five years. It is testament to her generosity of spirit, her empathy, and her calm common sense that we never even came close to falling out. We had different opinions on many things but always talked it through and came up with a solution that not only met in the middle but was better than anything we could have come up with alone. I will miss working with her more than I can say.

Louise was extraordinary.”

Louise’s legacy

Louise never stopped thinking about Equipp, and was passing on ideas (and instructions!) until the end. Her hope was that I would continue her work, particularly here on the blog and in support of teenagers, and I’m very lucky to be supported in that by her husband, Jason, and her daughter, Emily. It’s simply heartbreaking to be working without her, but I’m going to try.

Louise was unfailingly positive – you only have to read her blog on parenting with cancer to see just how amazing she was. I’m going to channel all that positivity into 2023 in her memory and I know that you’ll all be with me every step of the way.

Anna x

A little bit about Equipp

We’re Louise & Anna, mum to 5 teens and young adults. We set up Equipp to help spread happiness and positivity amongst today’s amazing young people. We believe it’s vital that every teenager is given confidence to believe in themselves.  Telling them how wonderful they are and putting a daily smile on their faces via the cards and gifts they receive from Equipp is integral to everything we design and produce. Have a browse around our collections of birthday and teenage milestone gifts and please do get in touch if you have any questions or would like any recommendation.

We love to celebrate teenagers in every way, and are building a community of parents who feel the same. We hope you enjoy reading our blog posts and we’d love it if you came and joined us on Instagram or Facebook to chat about parenting teens.

Oh, and we’re raising money for a fantastic teenage suicide prevention charity, Hector’s House, with a donation from every purchase from Equipp.