Our Story
Who We Are
Welcome to Ribbon Community
Founded as AIDS Vancouver in 1983, we are one of the first AIDS service organizations in Canada. We create welcoming and respectful spaces to overcome the impacts of HIV and HIV stigma.
We offer in-person services in Vancouver, Surrey, and Victoria to well over 1,500 people each year, and continue to build our online offerings for people living with HIV throughout BC. Ribbon pulls together the past, present and future of the HIV movement together.
Our Purpose
We support and empower communities in overcoming the impacts of HIV and HIV stigma.
Support
Ribbon provides practical assistance including a listening ear, food and hygiene items, drop-in services, and connects community members with government benefits, health care providers, and a welcoming place.
Empower
Community leadership has always been essential in the HIV response, and today is no different. Ribbon Community fosters this leadership and empowers individuals and communities as we amplify, strengthen, and encourage.
Our (many) communities
As Ribbon Community, our communities include people who have lived with HIV for days or decades, HIV-negative people who want support to navigate sex and substance use with HIV prevention in mind, Indigenous Peoples, and HIV-negative people who may come contact with HIV in spaces of joy and pleasure or systemic inequities.
HIV
Ribbon is an HIV-specific organization that holds space for the ways AIDS has shaped our communities. We are as holistic as we can be, going beyond the virus itself.
HIV Stigma
HIV stigma makes it harder to have the sex we want, build a family (chosen or otherwise), get healthcare we need, and be our full selves. Ribbon is here to change that.
Our values
We nurture meaningful involvement of people living with HIV.
We welcome our communities.
We honour every journey.
We are accountable.
Board & Staff
Ribbon volunteers and staff work together with partners, students, funders, and long-time allies to support and empower our communities.
Our team offers decades of combined experience living with HIV, navigating substance use and sobriety, working and volunteering in the HIV response.
Past, present, and future
There are 40+ years of stories about our organization, one of the very first AIDS service organizations in the country. Some of these stories were recorded as part of our 30th anniversary project, The 30 30 Campaign. Over thirty short videos, this series uses interviews and archival footage to tell some of the stories of those who were there.
As Ribbon Community, our name and logo honours the red ribbon – another way we pull the past, present, and future of the HIV response together. Grounded in the red ribbon, we know the past shapes who we are today, and who we will be for years to come.
Honouring Our PastCommunity Story
Empower through scholarships
Meet Rick Heffernan, one of two recipients of the $2,500 Kenneth Lackner Scholarship for 2025. Through nearly five years of volunteering with a drop-in for sex workers at Ribbon Community, Rick has witnessed firsthand how systemic inequities affect real people accessing HIV care and prevention.
In the spring of 2025, the Ribbon Community Board of Directors awarded two Kenneth Lackner Scholarships, one to Rick and one to a Ribbon Community client. This scholarship is just one way we support and empower our communities.
Meet Rick
Be a Ribbon Insider
The Ribbon Insider is our monthly enewsletter. It highlights upcoming groups, activities, events, and other opportunities within the HIV response.
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