Riley Saban: on leadership and TV fame

Riley Saban has cerebral palsy quadriplegia but his inspiring story is about helping others, sport and setting the bar high.

Riley Saban was named Coffs Harbour's Young Citizen of the Year. Picture: Matt Gazy.

Coffs Harbour’s Young Citizen of the Year, Riley Saban, has a simple yet powerful dream: to inspire, motivate and lead others.

He has never allowed his cerebral palsy quadriplegia to distract from the goals he had for himself and the community.

As a mate and role model to many at Woolgoolga High School and the wider region, Riley has actively participated in the SMILE program, providing mentorship for younger students.

“I believe knowledge is power and power is innovation,” Riley said.

“Innovation is a technique that we need to learn to adapt.”

Through the SMILE program, which has run at Woolgoolga High since 2011, older students provide social and emotional support to the younger ones.

SMILE (Support Mentor Inspire Listen Encourage) encourages positive life choices and aims to lift students’ self-esteem and to help them navigate bullying and social issues.

“As a community, we can all achieve extraordinary things together and make a difference,” Riley said.

The youngster is also a skilled boccia sportsman.

He captained a team in the NSW Interschool Boccia Competition, on its way to a gold medal in 2018.

Riley also starred in the ABC television documentary Becoming Superhuman, and went on to receive the 2017 Prime Minister’s Eureka Award.

Even through the pandemic, Riley was able to achieve huge feats.

“Honestly, these past couple of years haven’t been crash hot for all of us, but we have gained resilience to adapt to our environment,” he said.

Craig Caruana, Sports and Recreation Award nominee

Mr Caruana took it upon himself to redevelop the sports field at Korora until it became one of the best in Coffs Harbour.

When he started the project the football field was pretty much a dust bowl.

The now impressive Korora football field has come about in a large sense through the work of volunteer Craig Caruana.

Despite having no formal background in groundskeeping, Mr Caruana manually worked to dig up the soil, resealed the field and mowed, mowed and mowed.

While the council assisted in providing fertiliser, the operation was community-driven.

Mr Caruana said he would spend “15-20 hours per week” to transform the ground to the field of dreams it is today.

He has been an active member, volunteer and committee officer of the Northern Storm Football Club for more than 12 years .

But the hard yakka doesn’t end there.

He raised more than $22,000 last year for a local family whose son was involved in a road accident and required intensive care at John Hunter Hospital.

Mr Caruana previously coached the injured player.

The tragic accident resulted in the player’s single mother having to stop work to care for him.

Mr Caruana ran raffles along the North Coast to support them.

Other Coffs Harbour Australia Day award nominees included:

David Law – Citizen of the Year (winner)

Kath Puddey – Senior Citizen of the Year (winner)

Gurpreet Singh – Young Citizen of the Year

Kyra Fuller - Young Citizen of the Year

Hannah Legge - Sports and Recreation Award (winner)

David Horsley – Arts and Culture Award (winner)

Paul McKeon and Graham Lockett - Arts and Culture award

Zakpage - Arts and Culture Award.