Anaphylaxis Canada Announces Winners of Award for Canadian Students

Anaphylaxis Canada would like to congratulate the winners of the first annual Sabrina Shannon Memorial Award – Davida Houston age 18 from Thornhill, ON, and Erika Ladouceur age 21 from Victoria B.C. They were chosen from a list of submissions received by Anaphylaxis Canada over the past few months and both exhibited a strong commitment to raise allergy awareness as well as demonstrated significant efforts in educating those within their community on the seriousness of food allergies.

Davida has just started attending her first year at York University and was inspired by the life of Sabrina Shannon, demonstrating that one person can truly make a difference. This inspiration turned into action as Davida volunteered for a national mentorship program through the University of Alberta and AllerGen to help support youth with allergies. This unique opportunity entailed communicating with up to ten young teens on a weekly basis through an online conference chat providing guidance and advice on how to manage difficult situations. She also has worked as a camp counselor and was responsible for managing their allergy policy for campers which involved working with the parents to ensure their children were provided with a safe camp experience. Davida has food allergies to peanut and tree nut and is dedicated to creatively educating and helping others understand the severity and risks of anaphylaxis.

Erika who is a current student at the University of Victoria, has overcome many obstacles in managing her allergies to peanut, tree nut, soy, wheat, beans, hornets and animal dander. She has actively raised allergy awareness through volunteering for the Allergy/Asthma Information Association (AAIA) and helping facilitate two workshops at the AAIA 2007 Family Conference in Ottawa.  Erika was also a teen leader in the youth mentorship program at the University of Alberta. This experience helped inspire her to create a support network of her own for youth ages 7 to 13 called the Youth Anaphylaxis/Asthma Support (YAAS) in Victoria, B.C. Her mission is to “create a self-sustaining, supportive, allergy and asthma aware community.”

Anaphylaxis Canada received many applications from across the country, and selecting the recipients was not an easy task. The applications highlighted unique ways of creating allergy awareness which included ideas on training their teachers on how to use an auto-injector, writing a play about the significance of food allergy, and helping establish an allergy policy with their cafeteria, just to name a few. Sara Shannon was part of the review committee and was very pleased with the level of enthusiasm demonstrated by the applicants in raising allergy awareness that was conveyed in all of the submissions. “I really wish I could give the award to everyone, they are all doing such amazing things in their community and should be proud of themselves” remarked Sara.

The award is dedicated to the life of Sabrina Shannon, an inspirational teenager who tragically suffered a fatal anaphylactic reaction in 2003. Sabrina’s Law, named in her honour and a landmark legislation, was passed in Ontario in 2005, and continues to influence school board policies in Canada and worldwide.

Anaphylaxis Canada is proud to honour Sabrina’s memory with this award.