Students from the Fremantle Dockers Sport, Business and Leadership Program, in partnership with the Purple Hands foundation, have recently completed a major project community trip to Geraldton.

The trip marks the second of four major projects set to be delivered by the students by the end of the year, with visits to Broome and a Starkick All Abilities inclusion carnival still to be completed.

Students visited four schools across three days to deliver skills clinics to over 340 participants in the mid-west. 

The entire major project was driven by the students which involved getting in contact with schools, writing out session plans and planning and fundraising for things like fuel, accommodation and transport.

Program teacher Liam Thompson spoke about the work put in by the students to prepare for the major project.

“The planning for this trip was around four months in the making and they got onto the fundraising the quickest out of any group which was good to see,” Thompson said.

“There were certainly some standout students within the group that were working hard with the fundraising and that benefited the entire group once we got on the road."

The first stop was Waggrakine Primary School on Monday morning where students delivered one session to the Year 3 group before packing up and heading to Geraldton Grammar School for the afternoon to deliver two more sessions.

There was a mix of Year 2, 3 and 4’s throughout the afternoon with around 45-50 participants per session which was a fantastic turnout.

On Tuesday, students headed to St. John’s School to deliver seven sessions across the entire day, one session for every year group.

Thompson said that he was impressed with the energy the students brought while delivering the clinics.

“This group in particular were really good with their enthusiasm and energy while delivering the drills,” Thompson said.

“We had a bit of a discussion prior to heading out to schools about making sure that our enthusiasm and energy levels are really high and how that will generally feed off into the school students, and that was certainly the case with all the schools we attended. 

“The main thing that we want to see with these projects is the primary school students with smiles on their faces and enjoying getting outside and playing footy. It’s really rewarding.”

For the final day, the group headed to St. Francis Xavier Primary School where they had two Year 4 classes and one Year 3 class for an hour each before packing up and making the journey back home to Perth.

“It was a really rewarding experience. One of the students even made a comment that one of his biggest positives of the trip was the ability to get out of Perth, deliver these clinics and put smiles on the faces of school students," Thompson said.

“I think in essence that’s what these major projects are about and seeing that achieved is a real credit to the students.”

With two major projects left to deliver, Thompson said that both remaining groups were tracking well with their preparations.

“The Broome major project is tracking really well, they’re just finalising a few things but they’ll be ready to go in a few weeks from now,” Thompson said.

“A few of the students from the Starkick group attended a Kickability carnival a couple of weeks ago and got a really good insight into what it takes to be able to run an all-abilities carnival. 

“There’s still a bit of work that needs to go into it but they’re sitting in a good position right now.”