DRIVEN KIDS - Youth Week 2019 Fundraiser

In partnership with other organisations from the CAPP group and due to the generosity of funding bodies, LeaderLife’s young people from the CATALYST program had the opportunity to participate in preparing the Drive In site with Dubbo Landscaping and BackTrack Youth Works. The young people then helped organise and host an event at the Dubbo West View Drive-In as part of the Youth Week Celebrations in April 2019.

The project was called “DRIVEN KIDS”.

LeaderLife established this opportunity for the CATALYST young people to move beyond diversionary  activities and to include the Circle of Courage principles in a longer-term plan. “DRIVEN KIDS” allowed the boys to develop a sense of belonging and connectedness, learn new skills, while creating an opportunity to give back to the community.

Following a number of different planning workshops with the young fellas, it was decided that a fence needed to be erected at the Drive-In site to keep children safe from the dam and the front entrance garden needed a landscaping overhaul. Our young people also chose the movies including new release Captain Marvel, award winning documentary BackTrack Boys and the Fast and the Furious. BackTrack Boys was of particular interest for a community screening because the fellas have had the privilege of doing a lot of work with the BackTrack crew over the years and there was also a lot of community requests for this doco.

BackTrack are doing great things in Armidale; keeping kids alive, out of jail, and chasing their hopes and dreams.

“Driven Kids” was able to fund raise over $2080 that returned straight back into youth programs with LeaderLife. The kids did a cracking job running the Drive-In and one young fella said “we wanted to be part of this project because we want to give back to the community. It makes heaps of difference to be working here. We are very happy and proud of ourselves for doing the hard work. Look at us…working hard and we like it!”

Photo credit: Duke Albada Photo