Penny Smith

Penny has been a wonderful citizen within our town of Edenbridge. She is always happy to help and does everything that she can with little and often no recognition. She volunteers with numerous organisations and runs a rugby club for her school. She is a young leader at brownies, volunteers at the local SureStart centre, is a junior leader at the youth group, helps those who are physically and mentally disabled with drama, mentors year 7 children at school and helps out with sports for young people with epilepsy. As well as having the time to do all of this she is an active member of Edenbridge hockey club and a cyclist. She runs a youth group for young people in the area over the age of sixteen, not just as a place for them to go, but as a place to feel secure and where education takes place. Edenbridge has a high teen pregnancy rate and here they are educated on the means of safe sex. At the age of 18 she is someone that the young people can relate to and are therefore often open with and she will go above and beyond her role to try and support them. At Sackville school that she attends in East Grinstead she has set up and trained the first female rugby club they have had there and for the last two seasons they have gone unbeaten. It is time that she received some recognition for her work and this would be a dream come true.