Casey House Toronto

We had a total absolute blast at Set Smash Rally this past weekend with our eight fantastic corporate teams 🏐. After a full day of thrilling volleyball, we raised more than $75,000 in support of Casey House’s compassionate care and services for people living with and at risk of HIV—and the number just keeps growing! You can still donate to players and teams all month long at setsmashrally.ca

As we continue to wrap up the event, we’d like to extend a huge thank you to all the players and teams involved, our tremendous elite athletes and Olympians who brought their generous hearts and leadership skills as coaches, our positively luminous honorary co-chairs Marnie McBean and Mark Tewksbury, event sponsors, and volunteers for making the day such a success!

More photos and fun to come!

June 5th is HIV Long-Term Survivors Day, where we honour those who continue to live with HIV and raise awareness about the unique challenges that impact the poz community. Today is also an opportunity to celebrate the many folks who live fulsome and vibrant lives alongside their HIV status. While there have been notable advancements in the medical treatment, they are not always available or accessible to all. Factors like stigma, income instability, and health care callousness can all impact a person’s ability to access HIV treatment. However, there is always room for improvement and inclusion across different fields to support better health outcomes for people with HIV. At Casey House, we continue to provide dignified care to long term survivors of HIV with the compassion and warmth of our interdisciplinary team.

We were pleased to celebrate milestones of service achieved by our staff and volunteers at our Hearts of Service ceremony yesterday❤ These include folks who have worked or volunteered for 5, 10, 15, and even an astounding 25 years! While not everyone could attend the event, we celebrated and honoured each and every person who has generously contributed their time, skills, and heart to Casey House. We could not function without the incredible warmth and love that our people provide. Well done everyone!

Today, we are celebrating June Callwood’s 102nd birthday. Born June 2nd, 1924, June Callwood has left an indelible impact as a Canadian journalist and social justice activist. She served as the lead founder of Casey House, named in honour of her son Casey Freyne, in addition to Jessie’s, The June Callwood Centre for Young Women and many other organizations. When faced with the stigmas and discrimination that prevented people living with HIV to be cared for with dignity and compassion, June Callwood banded and her peers banded together to enact social change. Today, we honour her legacy and stalwart commitment to the betterment of society

On June 1st, we celebrate the start of both Pride month and national Indigenous history month. With the sunshine in full force, we look forward to honouring the diversity of these two month-long celebrations.

While we planning is underway with our Indigenous advisory committee, we’re excited to announce some of our pride-related activities this month:

❤️ June 1: 'We Rally for Pride' reception
🧡 Next week: staff breakfast Pride celebration
💛 June 13: Set Smash Rally
💚 June 27: Team Casey House takes on the Pride and Remembrance Run
💙 June 26-28: Pride parade festivities, including marching in the trans march, d**e march, and Sunday Pride parade.

We take this time to reflect on our longstanding history fundamentally rooted with the 2SLGBTQIA+ community. Year-round, we choose to honour-out-loud the unique identities of our staff, peers, volunteers, and clients. Yet, we cannot forget about those we have lost along the way. With that, we also encourage everyone to participate in AIDS vigil at Barbara Hall Park on Tuesday June 23rd to grieve, share stories, and remember. Casey House is proud to continue our legacy alongside the q***r community and recognize our shared history during Pride.

In honour of Dr. Gregory Robinson, volunteer, client, donor, friend, and ambassador. Greg contributed to Casey House in a multitude of ways, most recently as a member of the board of directors for the hospital and Casey House Foundation. His experience as a physician, researcher, and person who had lived with HIV for over 40 years made him wise and thoughtful.

His willingness to share his knowledge and experience over and over again was almost unmatched. Whether Greg was helping tour a Lieutenant Governor through the hospital or preparing a meal alongside other HIV+ chefs at June’s HIV+ Eatery he was gracious and positive, happy and gentle.

He was also generous. In 1992, his beloved Blair died at Casey House, and a few years ago Greg established an endowment fund in his honour, the Dr. Gregory Robinson Research Fund.

Our clinical team was honoured to provide Greg with the end-of-life care he championed and today, our thoughts go out to his friends, family, and life partner David, all of whom are having to learn to live without a one-of-a-kind human. May they know they are not alone in missing Greg.

“It will take more than a pill or injection to cure HIV; we must tackle stigma first.” Greg Robinson, physician who lived with HIV

May 17 is the International Day Against Homophobia Transphobia and Biphobia 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️. The theme this year is "At the heart of democracy" to remind us that truly democratic societies must be grounded in justice and freedom for everyone. There is work to be done for this to be true: 65 UN member states still criminalize consensual same-sex sexual acts. and legal gender recognition based on self-determination is only available in 18 countries at the national level.

Learn more or find out how to take action and get involved at May17.org/idahobit

Nursing week festivities concluded yesterday with our staff BBQ celebration. Staff gathered as we announced our 2026 Casey House Nursing Award recipient: Tiffany! Tiffany works with our outpatient clients, and as mentioned in the nominations submitted by her colleagues, notably goes above and beyond for staff and clients. We were honoured to celebrate her hard work, dedication, openness, and abundant compassion for the community we care for. Afterwards, we played games and awarded additional fun prizes for nurses and all staff at Casey House.

Congratulations once again to Tiffany for your inspiring skill and care! And thank you to all nurses as we come to an end of nursing week.

We’re introducing Christene, director of clinical services at Casey House. Christene oversees programs and clinical offerings provided by both the outpatient and inpatient teams.

Christene initially started her career with one goal in mind: to become an emergency room nurse. Once she got there, her initiative and persistence in upskilling took her on an unexpected journey in nursing. After gaining ample experience as a emergency and trauma room nurse, she also worked as a charge nurse, occupational health and safety nurse, and an organ donation coordinator, before being promoted to leadership positions. Now, we’re lucky to have her overseeing the clinical teams here at Casey House with her years of frontline service, expansive education in nursing and business, and years of management experience.

“I really love working with clients and with a group of really empathetic and caring individuals that I can trust on my team. I know they’re there for the same reason that I’m there – I truly love the people I work with.” – Christene

Thank you for being a part of our team Christene, and happy nursing week!
Learn more about Christene by reading her nurse profile below:
https://caseyhouse.ca/commentary/meet-christene-director-clinical-services/