Deban Brunette was backbone of programs that helped kids with reading and math
Debbie Ann (Deban) Brunette was so crucial in building the successful reading tutorial program run by the Neighbour to Neighbour Centre that it will rename the program after her.
The west Mountain non-profit agency is planning to call it the Deban Brunette Tutoring Program in time for its return to schools this September after being sidelined for two years due to the pandemic.
Deban was instrumental in building that program," executive director Denise Arkell said. It was an incredible loss for all of us. She will never be replaced. We believe that Debbie was a gift to Neighbour to Neighbour."
Brunette - who died April 20 at 64 of cancer at the Dr. Bob Kemp Hospice - was hired to run the program in 2003 after it had started at R.A. Riddell Elementary School. It began with three volunteers and 15 kids.
It now involves 200 children between grades 1 to 4 in 10 public and five Catholic schools, including one in Stoney Creek, and more than 100 volunteers. By 2019, more than 3,000 kids had passed through the program and it had been supported by 500 volunteers, many who were retired teachers. Children get tutorial sessions twice a week.
In 2015, Brunette added the Math Success Tutoring Program. It will be in two schools this fall with three volunteers helping 25 students. That same year, the reading program was named after donor Jack Parent.
Brunette came to the centre in 2001 to work as a part-time receptionist. She moved to the food bank before being hired as the first director of educational programs.
She had a lively personality.
She was a ball of fire," said Arkell. One thing I can say about Deban is that when she was here I knew the centre was alive. You could hear her laughter down the hallway."
Brunette was also well-known for her singing and her green thumb. She was a member of the Mount Hamilton Horticultural Society and had a beautiful garden on her front lawn that was included in the 2018 and 2019 Hamilton Spectator Open Garden Week tours. She received a Trillium Award from the city last year.
Her brother Mark called her an amazing woman." She spoke at the centre's annual general meeting in Mount Hope just a few weeks before her death.
She was strong," he said. She was a warrior, even through the battle with cancer."
Sisters Nancy and Wanda Bailey had known Brunette since grade school in the 1960s. They described her as a woman who liked to have fun, but someone who worked hard to help people.
She certainly wasn't a 9 to 5 person," said Nancy, a retired insurance broker. She was involved with all these outreach programs that dealt with poverty."
Wanda, a retired union negotiator, said she fostered good relationships. She collected people. She had friends in the horticultural world, the educational world and the music world."
Brunette was born Dec. 13, 1957, in Toronto. She came to Hamilton in 1959 when she was adopted by William and Mary Brunette. William worked at the Ford plant in Oakville and Mary was a homemaker.
Brunette attended King George Public School, Delta Secondary School and Hamilton Collegiate Institute for Grade 13. Mark said she worked at many jobs. She was a receptionist, bartender and worked at a hardware store and a modelling agency. She was a singer in a band that toured across Canada and spent a decade as a singer in St. Paul, Minn., She returned to Hamilton in 1998.
In 2016, Brunette received a Canadian Ambassador medal from literacy advocate Justin Page. He did not learn to read until he was 33 and went on to help street people become literate. He was inducted into the Order of Canada in 1990.
Brunette is survived by her partner Jim Easton, children Sakura and Liam, granddaughter Cosima and siblings Mark, Cheryl and George. She is also survived by her former husband Bruce.
Daniel Nolan can be reached at dannolanwrites@gmail.com