WHILE most 17-year-olds are counting down the days until Schoolies, Coolum State High School student Lara Carrington and two of her Year 12 friends plan to skip the party and travel to Cambodia to help underprivileged children.

"I've been brought up travelling to Third World countries and it is important that we give back, and I think it also helps us grow as people," she said.

The young trio will make the trip on November 30 to honour the memory of Lara's father and mentor David Carrington, who died suddenly of a heart attack on August 1 this year.

The young humanitarian said her dad would be extremely proud - and jealous - of her return trip to ABCs and Rice, a non-government school in Cambodia that provides free education, nutrition and health care to the poor children of Siem Reap.

Lara and her father had planned the trip together after the family volunteered there last year.

"He was a stay-at-home-dad, so I was pretty close to him," she said.

"He's the one who taught me how to respect other people and he's brought me up … to know that we should realise we are extremely lucky and that we should give back.

"And that's all that Dad would do. He sacrificed everything for me and my sister and the people overseas."

Lara plans to continue her father's legacy.

After she convinced her family and friends that going ahead with the two-month trip was the right thing to do, she has made huge strides towards her first goal - to give back to the Siem Reap community.

"We (Lara and her friends) are funding our trip ourselves, so the money that we are raising now goes straight to the school (ABCs and Rice)," she said.

"We have raised approximately $1300 so far.

"We started at market stalls selling our old clothes and transitioned to chocolate boxes and lolly runs."

As student council president, Lara also organised an "ABCs and Rice Day" at her school, where students donated either a pack of band aids or made a gold coin donation.

"They need clothes too, but we are going to buy them overseas in the market so that the money goes back into the community," she said.

"(That was) Dad's idea."

Towards the end of the trip the girls plan to head to South Cambodia to help build a new school with some friends Lara met on her last visit.