CBD travellers would have noticed the Pillars of Potential sign on the old Northern Rivers Collectables shop on Woodlark Street and wondered what it is all about.

Pillars of Potential is an NDIS business for Trevor and Debbie Lewis to enhance the experience for those who need NDIS support.

Trevor and Debbie are no strangers to business as the owners of the Boost Juice franchise in Lismore Square.

Trevor had a friend working as an NDIS coordinator who needed a support worker for a particular client on an ongoing basis. An initial one-day-a-week job has now turned into a full-time business.

(Trevor and Debbie Lewis inside Pillars of Potential)

"Over time, I guess it evolved where I could see a little bit of a gap in support, so we've just kind of tried to fill this gap," Trevor explained, "Our job is to find a way to do what the participants want to do."

Trevor's background is ex-army, production, management in business and people and motivation, making him an ideal person to improve the experience of NDIS clients looking for more than outings to events, shops and cafes for companionship.

Pillars of Potential provides hands-on experience in woodwork, car maintenance and restoration and cooking.

As an example, the woodwork area creates cheeseboards, shelving, a chest of drawers and TV cabinets in a safe space.

Mark is the person who runs the woodwork shop. He has spent time researching, designing and developing a safe-to-use drop saw which has a patent on it. With one hand on the safety handle and one on top of the drop saw it is impossible to get fingers anywhere near the cutting blade plus there is a built-in safety brake.

Then there is the automotive side of Pillars of Potential.

"People will take clients to car shows and let them sit in a nice car but there's no opportunity to get their hands dirty and pull the nuts and bolts off."

Staffing is an issue as Trevor can only find a mechanic once day a week on a Saturday, due to his other full-time employment, as well as a panel beater for the same reason.

"Ideally, we'll find somebody that can work through the week and have those mechanical skills. There is a demand as we've almost filled our Saturday with participants. We've got nine people on Saturdays for two sessions and we only just opened nominations last week."

The long-term plan for Trevor is to fully restore a Nissan Skyline to show condition and take it to various shows with those who helped restore it.

"We're currently stripping it all back and then we'll go around to a friend of ours who is a painter and he'll put a good custom paint job on it. Then we'll slowly rebuild it at show level over the next year."

"Part of the holdup will be buying parts. They don't make all of the parts for those anymore and they're very expensive. So, we offset that by buying a cheap Magna, that's sitting outside, fix it up for rego and then sell it to buy the parts for the Skyline."

"It gives participants a good set of skills on that. So, we did tappet cover gaskets, rear wheel bearings and engine mounts. Lots of work on that to get it to pass a blue slip."

"This is the first time they've had this opportunity for all of our participants, and I don't know of this anywhere else."

The problem for Trevor and Debbie is that the NDIS covers support but it doesn't cover any of the costs involved, in this case, none of the parts and none of the equipment. So, there is a large investment in being able to provide the opportunity and do the work safely. The drop saw is a prime example in the woodwork shop.

The participant builds the item they want to build and can then sell the item they make so they can buy a specific type of timber for a particular project. Otherwise, the wood used is old pallets that have been donated.

Mika has a background in disability and nutrition and runs the cooking classes at Pillars of Potential.

The cooking class allows participants to learn to cook basic, healthy meals with nutritional value.

"She's brilliant," Trevor enthused, "We're looking next year at doing a bulk cooking class with our cooked meals to prep for the week with a small cost for the ingredients. Our normal cooking classes are free."

If you need your lawns mowed or some gardening done, there is also the Pillars of Potential supported lawn mowing business.

"We have a participant and a support worker working together. We pay the full award wage to our participants, where a lot of them have a supportive wage, depending on their ability. Our guys are really trained to perform as a team, so they all go together. It's not a support worker and a participant doing it separately."

"They go out, usually in a group of four in a ute, that's two support workers and two supported, and mow and work together to form a bond and a team. Our aim is that all of our participants will take the step into unsupported work. So, filling that gap."

You can find Pillars of Potential at 126a Woodlark Street.