Amy Schilling - 2026 Young Legend Finalist
In 11 hours and 15 minutes, a Beechworth teenager and eight friends walked 40 kilometres for the 40 Hour Famine, raising more than $2,000. When adults supervising the walk told her to stop after she picked up injuries, her answer was blunt: "If others do it every day, I can do it once."
That's Amy Schilling's approach to most things. In 2025 she founded Teens Who Care, a youth-led volunteering program she built almost entirely herself, partnering with the Beechworth CFA, Landcare, Indigo Shire Council and local health services to run hands-on sessions for teenagers who wanted to give back but had nowhere structured to start. Four sessions ran in the end (six were planned), covering everything from cleaning CFA vehicles and replanting degraded claybanks by Lake Sambell to cooking and serving the Beechworth Community Christmas Lunch, which Amy now calls her favourite Christmas ever.
Beyond the two projects, she's spent 2026 representing young people at national events: the National Schools Constitutional Convention in Canberra, the Global Women Deliver Conference, and this August, the National Youth Parliament representing the electorate of Indi, alongside an ongoing role as an Indigo Shire Council Youth Advisor.
What she's learned, in her own words, is how to be heard. Getting adults to take a teenager's project seriously was, by her account, the hardest part of all of it.
The X-factor is that Teens Who Care was the first program of its kind in Beechworth, planned and run largely without adult involvement, in a small town where she says showing this much visible compassion can feel out of step with local expectations.
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