Year 12 students Matthew Partridge of Colo High School and Briony Darwen of Richmond High, took part in Max Potential last year.
Max Potential is a 22-week leadership program for young people developed by ClubsNSW and the Future Achievement Australia Foundation.
Coaches help participants set goals and encourage them to seek ways of achieving them.
The program usually ends with a community service project.
Matthew said he enrolled in the program because ‘‘it seemed kind of interesting’’.
‘‘What I found was, it was good at building my leadership skills,’’ he said.
‘‘For instance, I have this part-time job at McDonald’s, where I’m now a crew trainer.
‘‘I’m not shy, but before I learned some leadership skills I was not so forward with my ideas.’’
Briony said what she gained most from Max Potential was more confidence.
‘‘It taught me not to worry about people putting me down,’’ she said.
‘‘I didn’t have much confidence in myself or a belief I could fulfil my goal; being a director of a preschool.
‘‘Now, I’m a vice-captain at Richmond High and I go to TAFE one afternoon a week, doing children’s studies.’’
Max Potential coach Elizabeth Fraser said it was a pleasure to see how young people grew through the experience.
‘‘The role of coaches is to ask questions and get the students to come up with the answers,’’ Ms Fraser said.
‘‘I need to understand what they want, but I have to ask them if a goal is realistic.’’
Matthew said Ms Fraser had helped guide him into his community project.
‘‘I talked with Liz and she gave me some options,’’ he said.
‘‘I knew there was this soup kitchen in Richmond and I wanted to help people less fortunate than me, so we talked about what I could do.’’
Matthew organised a food drive for the soup kitchen, partly by placing donation boxes in schools.
Briony decided to be a volunteer at an aged care facility in Richmond.
‘‘I started out chatting to some older people who told me stories from when they were young,’’ she said.
‘‘I helped them get more comfortable with their surroundings, but it also opened my eyes; I realised there are so many stories out there.’’
Ms Fraser said it had also been an education for her.
‘‘We make our coaches set goals too; we’re learning while helping others learn,’’ she said.