The NSW Volunteer of the Year Awards are now in their 19th year and celebrate the work of thousands of individuals and volunteer teams from a diverse range of organisations across the state.
Congratulations to the 2025 Award winners for the North Western Sydney Volunteer of the Year Awards.
2025 North Western Sydney Volunteer of the Year
Hawkesbury Community Fire Unit volunteer Doreen McCulloch has been named the 2025 North Western Sydney Volunteer of the Year, for her decade long work to keep her bushfire prone community safe.
The category winners for the regional awards are:
2025 North Western Sydney Young Volunteer of the Year
Mackenzie Woodbury
Mackenzie is a training and radio communication officer with Hawkesbury Communications Rural Fire Brigade and Hawkesbury RFS headquarters. She has given her time over the past seven years providing training support, equipment checks and also helps with public awareness as a community engagement officer. Mackenzie has cerebral palsy and is also an Airforce cadet at Richmond RAAF.
2025 North Western Sydney Adult Volunteer of the Year
Ubah Gabris
Ubah is a strong advocate for domestic violence prevention and awareness, respectful relationships and inclusivity in her volunteer role with Westpac’s RESPECT employee resource group. Ubah, who came to Australia as a young Somalian refugee, is also the NSW Director of the Australian Professionals of Multicultural Communities, leads the membership and youth projects team at Castle Hill Rotary and serves on the Home Affairs Women’s Reference Group.
2025 North Western Sydney Senior Volunteer of the Year
Doreen McCulloch
Doreen has been a volunteer with Hawkesbury City Council’s Community Fire Unit for the past decade, raising awareness on fire prevention and building bushfire resilience across the community. She has given her time to create a district wide database of vital property and community firefighting assets such as static water, access permissions and fire hydrant locations. Her work training volunteers and sourcing assets has been a key to building community resilience in one of Sydney’s bushfire prone regions.
2025 North Western Sydney Emergency Volunteer of the Year
Dennis Lavender
Dennis has dedicated 28 years to volunteering with the Hawkesbury City Division of St John Ambulance NSW, beginning as a basic first aider and is now a fully trained First Responder. His life saving skills and volunteer work has been key to helping the community stay safe and healthy when facing emergencies, hardship or injuries. He has given more than 500 duty hours over the past 18 months with both frontline, training and back office support.
2025 North Western Sydney Volunteer Team of the Year
Hills Relay for Life Volunteer Team
The 21 volunteers at Hills Relay for Life helped raise more than $320,000 over the past 12 months, the second highest fundraising effort for any team with the NSW Cancer Council.
The volunteers give their time planning and running events, organising community education and engagement, and promoting the work of the NSW Cancer Council in supporting cancer research, as well as people and their families living with cancer.
2025 NSW Volunteer of the Year Award Sponsors
