School Board candidate Louise Penta raises $37,000 in endorsements in first month of campaign
Louise Penta, who just last month announced her candidacy for Collier County School Board, has raised $37,000 in endorsements to date. This is a testament to the trust and confidence the community has placed in Penta, the District 2 candidate who was named The Florida Take Stock in Children program’s 2015 Mentor of the Year.
Penta is active in the community and serves on the board of directors of the Immokalee Foundation, where she has been instrumental in raising more than $2 million to fund education programs. The Women’s Foundation of Collier County named her Woman of Initiative in 2016.
Those skills of governance — and Penta’s experience in building interpersonal relationships in the community and among its leaders — will play a key role in her success as a member of the Collier County School Board. She is confident that being an enlightened observer of mainstream education will bring a fresh perspective to Collier County education, particularly to its children, parents and teachers. She believes that hard work and listening carefully to her constituency is as much a recipe for success as is mentoring children in ethics and education by community role models.
“Building the current and future workforce should be the No. 1 issue for all citizens in Collier County,” she said. “K-12 educators are the foundation for building that workforce. Let’s support our teachers and reward them based on merit, not seniority.”
The public will have an opportunity to meet the candidate from 6-7:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 18 at a forum that will feature Collier County School Board candidates from District 2 and District 4. The event will be held at the Norris Center, 755 8th Ave. S., Naples, FL. Moderator Jeff Lytle, retired Naples Daily News editorial page editor, will present questions to the candidates at the forum.
About Louise Penta
Louise Penta grew up in the Boston area, where she raised her own family. A full-time resident of Naples since 1999, she has fully invested herself in the community. Through various events in the last six years alone, she has helped raise more than $7 million to fund education programs. The Women’s Foundation of Collier County honored her as a Woman of Initiative in 2016. Penta’s personal mentoring of a number of local children has resulted in each advancing to the college level. To learn more about Louise Penta, visit www.louisepenta.com.