A journalist who founded roughly 50 social service organizations on the side
June Callwood
Alongside a long career as a Toronto journalist, June Callwood helped found dozens of social service organizations, including Canada's first hospice for people dying of AIDS.
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June Callwood worked as a journalist in Toronto for more than five decades, writing for newspapers and magazines while building a parallel reputation as one of the city's most persistent social activists. Beyond her writing career, Callwood is credited with helping found or launch somewhere around 50 social service organizations over her lifetime, addressing causes including homelessness, domestic violence, and the rights of people living with HIV/AIDS at a time when the epidemic carried enormous public stigma.
Casey House and a lasting legacy
Her best-known founding project is Casey House, which opened in Toronto in 1988 as one of the first hospices in the world dedicated specifically to caring for people dying of AIDS, established at a moment when many hospitals and care facilities were reluctant to treat AIDS patients at all. Callwood continued both her journalism and activism into her final years, and by the time of her death in 2007 she was widely regarded as one of the central figures in Toronto's social service and civil society landscape of the late 20th century.
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