Janice Deacon is a retired elementary school principal, who has been working for the past two years for The Learning Partnership on the Welcome to Kindergarten program. Janice volunteers in a book club for inmates at Collins Bay Penitentiary in Kingston and for Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan. CW4WA, a national organization, has raised funds to educate more than 50,000 girls in Afghanistan. Janice is an avid supporter of literacy for people of all ages and believes that education is the most important pillar upon which progress can be built.
Janet Honsberger is a curriculum consultant and a retired educator from Fleming College. She supports community development locally and has facilitated voluntary sector and education projects across Canada and in Hungary and Brazil. Janet is currently a volunteer with organizations in Millbrook and Peterborough, including Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan, St Joseph’s at Fleming Foundation, Marycrest at Inglewood Seniors Residence, and Seeds of Change.
Fran Fearnley is a former educator who served as a school board trustee for six years and was, for a decade, the editor-in-chief of Today’s Parent magazine. In 2000, following two years of volunteer work in South Africa, Fran founded ZimArt’s Rice Lake Gallery on her rural Ontario property. The gallery specializes in stone sculpture from Zimbabwe and Fran visits ZimKids’ projects, to monitor progress, during her business trips to Zimbabwe.
Carol McKey is an arts educator who founded Milkweed Preschool in 2002. She became involved in Zimbabwe when she had to explain to her students what it meant to be an orphan, and has been coordinating a letter exchange with God Knows Community Children’s Project in Zimbabwe ever since.
Isabel Stukator is an artist/designer and instructor at Sheridan College. She and her partner owned a bike store in Peterborough and ran bicycle tours in Jamaica for ten years. These endeavors, as well as her long- time concern with environmental sustainability, spurred her interest in community-based development projects.