Lynn Deutscher Kobayashi (she/her)

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Lynn Deutscher Kobayashi is an intergenerational community connector passionate about community building and the enriching relationships that develop while working towards meaningful causes. She is on the steering committee of the Canadian Race Relations Foundation Anti-Asian Racism Coalition, a founding member of The Asian Canadian Women’s Alliance and past-NAJC vice-president, chair of the NAJC human rights committee which she currently sits on. Her father Bill Kobayashi was Toronto NAJC President from 1986-1988 and she was in the House of Commons on September 22, 1988 with her parents, sister and son when the historic redress agreement was announced.

Lynn has a fine-arts degree and several digital media management and business communications diplomas which she has utilized professionally in diverse non-profit settings including education, healthcare, community services and social justice. Now retired, she continues her commitment to change. Her mantra as a community organizer is to “turn good intentions into results”. She conceived of and was executive lead for the Toronto NAJC milestone human rights symposium to celebrate the 75th Anniversary of the NJCCA-NAJC. She’s been a volunteer at OXFAM Canada, the Terry Fox Foundation, Fred Victor and was team lead for a Syrian refugee sponsor group.

A creative solution seeker, activist and athlete, she placed third in her age-group at the 2007 Boston Marathon and held Canadian age-group and provincial records in distances from the mile to marathon. Thanks to an NAJC sports grant, Lynn competed in the 2016 World Masters Track Championship in South Korea, earning a silver medal in the 3000-meter race. One of her proudest running achievements was to get the Ethiopian community in Toronto running by organizing their participation in a fundraising run now into its 10th year. From 2011-2015 she and husband Pat Deutscher founded and chaired a fundraising gala to benefit AIDS orphans and traveled to Ethiopia to see the impact of the funds raised. They have one adult son.