A group of Auburn High School students will learn the ropes of leadership and strengthen their core values, beginning this fall.

Class advisers, coaches, and extracurricular supervisors at the high school picked 80 students - 40 ninth- and 10th-graders, 40 11th- and 12-graders - who exhibit leadership skills to participate in a program that would provide training to enhance those skills and use them to influence the people around them.

L.E.A.D. USA, an organization dedicated to teaching young adults leadership skills, is coming to Auburn High School starting Oct. 27, bringing with it a series of workshops and programs - including a trip to the Orenda Springs ropes course in Marcellus - to help students be a positive influence in the lives of others.

“We're hoping what the kids will get out of this is that they will have great respect for their peers, and in the process, learn some leadership skills,” said John Alberici, program director in Auburn, “things that will help them as they go on to their college years and also go on later in life and be principled men and women in whatever field they choose.”

Financed by the Stardust Foundation of Central New York, L.E.A.D USA will provide those students with 35 hours of training, Alberici said, and school advisers will meet with them throughout the year to follow-up and reinforce that training.

But Auburn High School is just one prong of a sustained effort to harvest a population of leaders. The Stardust Foundation is providing $75,000 in funding for four years to bring L.E.A.D. USA to various organizations in Auburn: the Booker T. Washington Community Center, Champions for Life, the YMCA-WEIU and the high school wrestling team, which one year ago was the first to utilize the program.

The Stardust Foundation financially supports Leadership Cayuga and Blueprint II, programs dedicated to fostering community leadership, and working with L.E.A.D. USA continues that path.

“One of the things we look at in philanthropy,” Executive Director Guy Cosentino said, “is that we want to help provide the skill set for new leaders, and obviously these are the most impressionable students.”

At the high school, the program is aligned with district goals. But Principal Brian Morgan said the skills students learn and enhance are not just meant to be used inside the walls of the school building.

“The skills they learn can transcend any facet of their life,” he said. “It will positively impact anyone they come in contact with.”