Simin Marefat, an unstoppable nurse: For almost 10 years, wherever she went, she saw enormous need and a huge deficit of resources around the globe from Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan to Chile, Argentina, Peru and Bolivia.

She organized a benefit in 2006 that raised $14,000: the proceeds helped Orphans of Rwanda to build a health clinic at Gisimba Memorial Center. She visited the clinic in June 2007 to see that the children all have health cards with their pictures and vaccinations and medications. They have a nurse who provides for them. She then organized a second benefit which raised $18,000: the proceeds will cover tuition for 34 Orphans of Rwanda to go to school.

Fleeing Iran, her family arrived in the United States in 1986 to Hays, Kansas. It was that odyssey, beginning with escape, displacement, discrimination and eventual acceptance, Marefat says, that taught her anything was possible.