projects by young students benefit local communities

We’re excited to share the fourth instalment of our series, celebrating the achievements of the young people on our programmes, and spotlighting the social action projects they have successfully delivered.

Dame Kelly Holmes Trust’s schools-based programmes, On Track to Achieve and AQA Unlocking Potential, are designed to boost wellbeing, increase confidence, strengthen resilience and build self-esteem so individuals can fulfil their true potential. Over the course of the 2024/25 academic year, students across the country have been working hard with their Athlete Mentors to identify, plan and execute a Social Action Project which is close to their hearts and benefits those around them.

Helping foodbanks and homeless shelters made a big difference

Students at St Edwards School in Southampton and Montpelier High School in Bristol identified, planned and organised a collection for a local foodbank and a homeless shelter respectively.

Both groups of students worked with former Paralympic swimmer, Liz Johson who won gold at the 2008 Beijing Games during their programmes. St. Edwards School took part in the AQA Unlocking Potential programme while Montpelier High School took part in the On Track to Achieve programme.

In Southampton, the group got in touch with a local foodbank in Romsey, and throughout the project they organised donation drives at the school across different year groups, including key stage two, plus lower and middle school. Once all the items were collected they made the trip to Romsey to deliver the goods.

Liz said: “The group showed great initiative throughout the social action project. They were really keen to support the local foodbank, and everything they organised and put in place was a big success, they should be really proud of themselves.”

Liz’ other group at Montpelier wanted to help people within their local community, and over the course of their programme the students identified the need of helping those who are homeless in their community.

“The social action project at Montpelier was a great success, the students utilised the skills from the programme and put together a really thoughtful project which will help the local homeless shelter in Bristol,” explained Liz.

The group had a twofold plan, first they got essential items from Home Bargains and then within the school they worked with their year group tutor to promote the project wider in the school through power point presentations and assemblies – once all the items were collected, the delivery to the shelter took place.

Lutterworth donation drive helped local foodbank

Kingsbury High School organised transition day for Year 5 students 

In Northwest London, students at Kingsbury wanted to help prospective Year 6 students. They planned and organised a transition day of fun activities to help them make the step up from primary to secondary school when that day comes.  

Taking part in the AQA Unlocking Potential programme, the young people worked with Yona Wisdom-Knight, a former Olympic diver who competed at two Olympic Games for Jamaica in Rio 2016 and Paris in 2024.  

The whole project impacted 84 primary school students from two local schools in the area – the day consisted of exciting sporting activities as well as creating an information booklet with tips and advice on how to transition into secondary school.  

Multiple school fundraisers helped a local foodbank  

Lutterworth High School in Leicester was another school who took part in the AQA Unlocking Potential programme, along with their athlete mentor Harry Baker, a current member of the England Cerebral Palsy Football team who has played in nine major international tournaments and is currently preparing for the 2025 European Championships, held at Loughborough University this summer. 

To help with the collection for a local foodbank, the young people organised a series of different fundraisers to help buy the essentials – one of the standout fundraisers was ‘sponge the teacher’ and athlete mentor! 

Harry said: “It was really good to see all the students get involved in the social action project, all the fundraisers raised enough money to get those vital supplies for the foodbank – they really thought about everything from start to finish, they were a great group to work with.”