Age: 55

Barb Dorrington

OCCUPATION: High school trauma counsellor, veteran hurricane Katrina relief volunteer.

PROFILE: Windsor-born Dorrington has spent the last 18 years working as a trauma counsellor for London children. Through the London District Catholic school board, she works with pupils at John Paul II, St. Anne and Blessed Sacrament schools. She's also travelled to the U.S. Gulf Coast seven times since 2005 to help hurricane Katrina survivors. Along with London trauma workers Dave Schiller and Barb Desjardins, she took 40 high school students on a relief mission there last spring. In 2007, she organized Katrina's Kids with Cameras, an exhibit and auction that featured photography by children affected by the hurricane. A trained arts therapist, Dorrington for 25 years has used painting and drawing to help kids build self-esteem and deal with traumatic situations. She trained at Michigan's National Institute for Trauma and Loss in Children, and this year won the institute's trauma loss consultant supervisor award. She's among a few counsellors who've brought the institute's trauma loss program to London, which will be used to train other counsellors.

MOTIVATION: Says counselling is just as important as providing food and shelter to those in need following traumatic incidents.

QUOTE: "I've done everything from sleeping in tents on contaminated grounds to staying in a converted abandoned warehouse, to help people," she said of her hurricane Katrina experiences.