PennyDeatheForTrustee
secured funding for the WDHS Expansion and new schools in Flamborough. This included incorporating French Immersion into the new Guy Brown school.
In 2009, Penny founded Healthy Community - Healthy Youth (HC-HY) Flamborough, an organization to help prevent youth from falling through the cracks, based on her experience with working and engaging youth in Hamilton. Penny partnered with HWDSB, JHS of Hamilton, Burlington & Area, Hamilton Police Services, Hamilton Public Health, CAMH, YMCA, Flamborough Women's Resource Centre, FCC, WCN, Service Clubs, local government and WE Group to help make this happen. In May 2012, through partnering with the John Howard Society, HC-HY received a 3 year grant from Trillium to support positive youth development in Flamborough.
Some of the initiatives though HC-HY Flamborough include:
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Educating and training parents, community leaders, police officers, schools, businesses, service clubs, local government leaders and agencies to build assets in our youth
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Meeting regularly with student team to plan activities supporting mental health and bullying awareness strategies
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Implemented guest speaker program at WDHS
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Providing parents with information, resources and tools, including a reference library for each school
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Facilitate forums to give students a voice and empower them to be positive role models
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Support student success through workshops and presentations such as “What’s Your Path”
To learn more about HC-HY Flamborough, go to www.focusonthe40.ca
Penny was the recipient of the Rotary's Paul Harris Fellow award and was nominated for the Flamborough Chamber of Commerce Sandy Gray/Weeks Home Hardware Community Service by an Individual Award" nominee.
Penny is currently Director of Program Development and Partnerships for Healthy Community - Healthy Youth Flamborough. HC-HY recently partnered with Flamborough Connects (Flamborough Information & Community Services) and has received a Trillium Grant to develop a "What's Your Path" Hub. She continuously works with parents, students, teachers,community partners and agencies to address youth issues and challenges and help prepare them to succeed.
About Penny
Penny (second from the right) and her family at her daughter's high school graduation.
In 1995, the Deathe family moved to Waterdown. As a mother of three, Penny became involved in her children’s education through classroom volunteering and joining the Parent Councils of Flamborough area schools.
With her background in business and marketing, Penny has guided clients through the leadership process to improve productivity, stimulate change and unify teams around a common goal. As a member of the Flamborough Chamber of Commerce, she has taught workshops on professional leadership.
Penny has served on the Mary Hopkins Parent Advisory Committee. She also spent four years as Co-chair on Flamborough Centre and Waterdown District High School Parent Councils. She also represented Flamborough schools on the HWDSB Parent Involvement Committee for four years. She was a member of the original Steering Committee to build the Youth Centre.
In 2008 Penny joined the Waterdown Education Group (WE), a collaborative group of local School Councils that worked with the School Board to address the accommodation crisis. Waterdown District High School and elementary schools were well over capacity, and a plan created by HWDSB to bus students outside of Flamborough was rejected by the community.
WE, working with HWDSB, Trustee Karen Turkstra and staff, successfully petitioned the Ontario Government and