Shirley Young
Shirley Young honoured with award for exceptional service as a volunteer to the HIV/AIDS community
Shirley Young is being recognized with a Casey Award posthumously for exceptional volunteer service to the HIV/AIDS community. Shirley was a renowned volunteer at the Dr. Peter Centre in Vancouver, British Columbia, who passed away in August, 2024 after over three decades of service for people living with HIV.
During the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, Shirley’s son Dr. Peter Jepson-Young was diagnosed with HIV. A CBC-TV documentary series, The Dr. Peter Diaries, later publicized his experience as a young gay physician living with HIV to a national audience. Shirley stood firmly by his side amidst the social discrimination associated with the disease, while expanding her own perspectives on HIV stigma. This is how she became a fierce advocate for the HIV community. Ultimately Peter died in 1992, which motivated Shirley to lead the development of the Dr. Peter Centre, where individuals living with HIV could receive dignified stigma-free health care, meals, and recreational programming.
When the Dr. Peter Centre first opened its doors in 1997, Shirley volunteered in a variety of roles and served as the head matriarch of the organization—with many clients simply calling her “mom”. Her warm presence was felt by all those who entered the space. She deeply understood the myriad and complex challenges that impacted the community: mental health struggles, addiction, homelessness, and poverty, in addition to HIV. No matter their circumstances, Shirley treated every person who entered Dr. Peter Centre with love and care. Her signature greeting says it all, “Are you a hugger? Well, never mind, I am.”
Over the course of the next 27 years at the Dr. Peter Centre, Shirley served meals to clients alongside other volunteers. Her high-touch and compassionate attitude was a guiding star for the Dr. Peter Centre staff to follow. She was celebrated by the Indigenous community through the creation of a totem pole erected in the Dr. Peter Centre lobby, where she is commemorated as the “Mother Bear”. And at her celebration of life, she was honoured in a blanketing ceremony by Indigenous Elders.
Shirley Young will be remembered for her decades of compassion and dedication to the HIV/AIDS community. Her unfaltering love for her son evolved and expanded into a sincere love for all those who may have been excluded from society. Casey House extends warm congratulations to Shirley Young’s family and the Dr. Peter Centre community as we celebrate her with a Casey Award.