A Strathroy financial planner is giving back to the community where she grew up.

Marilyn Buttery of CommonWealth Financial is giving the mayors of five municipalities – Brooke-Alvinston, Warwick, Adelaide-Metcalfe, Strathroy-Caradoc and South West Middlesex – $10,000 to put towards a community recreation project of their choice this year. She’ll give them another $5,000 for another four years after that to grow community projects.

Buttery grew up in Napier which she calls “the center of the universe” a stones throw away from Brooke-Alvinston. She went to Brooke Central School as a child. and she returned there to give Brooke-Alvinston Mayor Don McGugan his first $10,000 during a council meeting held at the school during Local Government Week.

“The communities have been very good to us – extremely good to us – so I wanted to say thank you,” she tells The Independent.

Buttery says she wanted to make it “100 per cent at the mayors discretion because they should know what they want to do in the community.”

McGugan was very thankful for the cash which this year will go to help pay for netting around the ball diamond in Alvinston. “I think it is great that Marilyn is giving back to her community,” he told the Brooke Central Students.

Buttery hoped the donation would encourage others, including students to also give back to their community or a charity they support.

“Even a $5 dollar donation can make a difference to that charity…Think about what you can do individually for your community,” she urged the students.