Women of Excellence honourees announced
The May Court Club of Chatham will honour six local women for its annual Women of Excellence event in June.
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The May Court Club of Chatham will honour six local women during its annual Women of Excellence event in June.
The cocktail reception, which will be held at the John D. Bradley Convention Centre June 3, recognizes women who have made contributions at the local, regional, national or international levels.
“Our members are pleased to once again have the opportunity to recognize the deserving Chatham-Kent women who have been selected as Women of Excellence 2022,” Diane Bradley, president of the local May Court Club, said in a news release.
“Proceeds from the sale of tickets for the Women of Excellence reception … will help fund May Court’s important work with women and children in our community.”
Tracy Bultje will receive the award in the arts and culture category. Her landscape paintings have been shown at ARTspace and the Thames Art Gallery in Chatham, the Canvas Art Gallery in Toronto, the Butter Gallery in Collingwood, Gallery Merrick in Victoria, B.C., and Westland Gallery in London.
Bultje has volunteered by teaching art at summer camps and has donated two paintings per year to support local causes. She also developed an art program for children with special needs at the Children’s Treatment Centre of Chatham-Kent.
In the business and professions category, Justice Lucy Glenn is being recognized for her career as a judge on the Ontario court of justice from 1996 to 2020. She was called to the bar in 1979 and practised law in Blenheim for the next 17 years, working as a criminal prosecutor and a peer reviewer for the Law Society of Upper Canada.
Glenn was also a founding member of the board of directors for the Chatham-Kent Women’s Shelter, a member of the board of directors for the Blenheim Co-op Nursery School and a chair of the United Way campaign for Blenheim in 1993.
Brenda LeClair, the executive director of Chatham Outreach for Hunger, will be recognized with the community and volunteerism award. She started out as one of the first volunteers at the food bank in 1988 before moving into her current role in 1990. In 2021, Outreach for Hunger provided 5,460 households with nutritious meals.
LeClair, a founding member of what is now called Feed Ontario, is also a member of the Prosperity Roundtable, the Kent Association of Volunteers and volunteers at the Chatham-Kent Hospice.
Sarah Mayes-Tang, recognized in the education and training category, grew up in Chatham-Kent and is now an assistant professor of mathematics. She obtained her undergraduate degree at Queen’s University and completed her master’s and PhD at the University of Michigan.
She worked on the curriculum redesign for the first-year calculus course at Quest University and the University of Toronto. Mayes-Tang has also given several presentations on women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
The award in the health, science and technology category will be presented to Marlene Schaap Kuri, who has worked at the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance as a registered nurse for the past 37 years. She has been focused on mental health and addictions for the past 20 years, working in areas like inpatient psychiatry and mental health pre-assessment.
Schaap Kuri also has an master’s degree in psychology from Walden University and has taken courses towards a doctorate. She has also supported the health alliance’s mentorship program throughout her career and has been a preceptor to fourth-year nursing students from the University of Windsor.
Madeline Van Der Paelt, a software engineer who grew up in Chatham and now works near Ottawa, has been recognized in the young woman of excellence category. Van Der Paelt is involved with a study with the Professional Engineers of Ontario to propose changes that would help those seeking their engineering designation in relatively new fields like software and also candidates who are new to Canada.
She currently works as the development manager for tech company Trend Micro. She has also volunteered as a Brownie Group leader, regularly played piano at a local nursing home and is on the organizing committee for a yoga event to raise money to fight childhood cancer.
Tickets for the event are $75 and can be purchased by calling Maxine at 519-436-0692 or Anne at 519-352-2710.
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