River’s Gift: When the Marriage Ends but the Mission Continues

If you’ve lived in the city of Geelong for any significant period, you’ve probably heard of River’s Gift.

Their fundraising efforts, gala events and connection with local celebrities like the Mik Maks mean their tragic yet inspirational story, and the phenomenal work they do, has been regularly shared across print, broadcast and social media.

So, when I received a message saying Alexandra Hamilton, Alex, would be open to chatting, I knew it was going to be a conversation that mattered.

When Alex talks about River’s Gift, she speaks with a kind of clarity that can only come from deep commitment and purpose.

River’s Gift began in 2011, after Alex and Karl Waddell lost their first child, River, to SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) at 4 months of age. In the weeks after his death, amid unimaginable grief, they found themselves asking a question no parent should ever have to ask: why did this happen?

River had been slept safely. He was on his back. There was nothing around him. They didn’t smoke. Everything they had been told to do had been done.

So, they started looking for answers.

At first, there was no grand plan to build an organisation. But amid the grief, there was a need to make sense of River’s loss and do something useful with the pain. A fundraiser had raised around $15,000 by the time River’s funeral took place, and soon after, Alex and Karl began meeting with researchers.

Within about a month, River’s Gift was born.

What began as a way to honour their son became a foundation committed to funding world-leading SIDS research, delivering infant safe sleep education and supporting families affected by sudden infant death.

Like many organisations started from lived experience, River’s Gift grew organically.

Alex was working as an actor and in event management. Karl was working in recruitment. Neither of them sat down at the beginning and said, “How are we going to work together?” There were no position descriptions, no clear roles and no long-term organisational map.

There was simply a shared mission: find out why River died and help stop it happening to other families.

In those early years, the work was fuelled by momentum and meaning. Business sponsors came on board. The community wanted to help. The organisation began to formalise. A board was established. Eventually, Karl stepped into the organisation full-time. Alex, who had another job, remained part-time until 2019, when the business could accommodate them both full-time.

Over those years, they also had two more children.

Then Alex and Karl separated.

The board was understandably anxious. Part of the uniqueness of River’s Gift was that the founders were perceived to be in a strong relationship, which added strength to their message. What would happen to the organisation now? Would the separation derail everything they had built? Would River’s Gift need to wind up?

However, Alex and Karl were clear: the end of their marriage did not mean the end of the mission. The business was their son’s legacy and that was bigger than their relationship.

Alex doesn’t romanticise the difficulty. They were separating, parenting, working and still carrying River’s grief. Then COVID arrived, adding yet another layer of disruption. It was intense, but they found a way through it.

Today, Karl works full-time in River’s Gift as General Manager. Alex works one day a week in the organisation, sits on the board and works in another not-for-profit in the grief support space.

She says she often speaks to Karl more in a day than she does to her own partner. Their relationship now, she says, is more like brother and sister. They drive each other mad, but they also deeply understand each other’s strengths.

That combination of closeness, irritation, respect and shared purpose is familiar to many people who work with someone they love. However, Alex and Karl’s story offers a rare and powerful perspective: what happens when the love changes form, but the work still requires you to show up together?

For Alex, part of what makes it possible is that River’s Gift has always remained their “solid space”. Even when the marriage was not working, the mission still was. They had one common goal. That goal did not erase the personal pain, but it gave them a place to return to.

They also bring very different strengths.

Karl is direct, driven and unafraid to pick up the phone. He is comfortable with sponsor conversations and sales calls; the kind of work Alex describes as her worst nightmare.

Alex brings creativity, strategy and marketing thinking. Together, they’ve learned to hold both the emotional truth of the work and the organisational clarity required to make it sustainable.

Looking back, Alex says they would have benefited from having better structures and governance earlier. In the beginning, they were grieving, parenting and building all at once. They were both doing everything. They went off on tangents. They stepped on each other’s toes. They had the common goal, but not always the shared map.

Over time, River’s Gift has become more structured. There are clearer position descriptions, KPIs and governance. People know their lanes and the board provides objectivity. That clarity has helped them protect the work, the team and their relationship as co-parents.

Their team may find their dynamic unusual at times: ex-partners who still travel together for work, or discuss the children’s movements in one moment, then head to different homes the next. Nevertheless, that’s much better than asking staff to carry the emotional weight of unresolved conflict.

For Alex, respect has had to remain central.

When you are close to someone, it is easy to speak to them in ways you would never speak to another colleague. Familiarity can breed complacency. During their separation, Alex and Karl had to sit down and acknowledge that they needed to speak to each other with a different level of respect.

Once people feel personally attacked, guards go up and trust erodes. It becomes very difficult to get the work done.

I think that’s what makes this story so powerful.

Alex’s story is not a neat love story. It is a story about two people who found a way to keep choosing the work, even when their relationship changed.

River’s Gift exists because two grieving parents turned their pain into purpose. It continues because those same two people learned how to keep showing up, not as husband and wife, but as co-founders, co-parents, River’s parents and custodians of a legacy that still matters.

Learn more about or Donate to: River's Gift