If you pop into H-306 on a Monday during lunch, you’ll find the Berkeley High School Lifemaxxing club. The Lifemaxxing club focuses on a variety of life skills, ranging from budgeting to cooking, in hopes of smoothing the transition from high school into adulthood. The club aims to be “a resource for students to get a different ... kind of education beyond just school,” Alice Turner, club president and BHS sophomore, said.
Turner works with Josephine Anthoff and Bella Kelman, both BHS sophomores, to run the club. Anthoff is the vice president and helps handle the budget as well as run the club’s Instagram. Kelman is the secretary, and it’s her job to send out emails and film speakers who present at the club.
Turner came up with the idea of Lifemaxxing club after having a conversation with her grandmother about the lack of home economics in school. The goal of the club isn’t to exactly replicate a home economics club, but to be “a more expansive version of that, and also a more inclusive version of home ec that kids could kind of learn from,” Turner said. After pitching it to Anthoff and Kelman, they agreed.
“I had questions about when I’m an adult and I have to live alone. How am I going to learn all of this stuff? Because I feel like I’m not being taught (that) in school,” Anthoff said, “When (Turner) told me about her idea for the club, I thought it was a really good idea.”
Choosing the name “Lifemaxxing” wasn’t the leaders’ first choice, but when the name was suggested as a joke, Anthoff’s younger sister thought it was great, and it eventually ended up sticking. “Now there are definitely a couple people that fully aren’t coming just because it’s called Lifemaxxing, but I also think part of the fact that it’s silly is like it works,” Turner said.
The club tries to host a new guest speaker every few weeks, and in the meetings in between, they try to practice the skills that were covered in the talks. On Monday, Sept. 21, 2026, the club held a talk from a local legal expert, and then they spent the following club meeting practicing the legal safety skills they had learned. In the future, they hope to cover topics such as how to change a tire, basic cooking, and basic sewing skills.
“We want to kind of clear up confusion or fears that people have about ‘how am I gonna like you know (do adult life) on my own?’ I feel like it’s not talked about a lot,” Anthoff said.
“The number one (piece of) advice I would give to someone that’s starting a club is you can’t do it with just two people. You need like a couple people to do it ... I know there’s some clubs that are just like you meet and you talk about stuff and it’s less planning for people that are leading the club. (But) I think that if you want to do a more in-depth club, you really need people,” Anthoff said.
After having a booth at the BHS Fall Club Fair, the club has seen consistent turnout their first four meetings of the school year.