Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2001. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Associated Press - December 2, 2001
Saturday, World AIDS Day, Greenshields received the fourth annual Grove Award in recognition of his 17 years working for the AIDS community. He has spent 14 of those years in different positions at the kitchen of San Francisco-based Coming Home Hospice, which serves up to 15 residents in a home-like atmosphere.
"The place where I work is a train station where people come in and they are passengers," said Greenshields upon receiving the award. "And while they are in the hospice, we do what we can to make them more comfortable, to give them a sense of structure, to give them a sense of security ... and one by one they go out the door and they get on the train."
Greenshields said the average time residents stay in the hospice is six weeks before they die. He said he regards each death as an important link in the miracle of life.
"There is a symbolic connection in the process of birth, life and death," Greenshields said. "Death is birth, and we are often reminded of that connection. It is a small miracle and for me it has been an honor to have been part of it the for the last 14 years."
Greenshields' recipes have helped feed more than 1,000 patients since 1987, the year the program began. Residents are primarily people with AIDS, but it also welcomes patients dying from other diseases.
The director of the Governor's Regional San Francisco Office, Roberts Oakes, read a statement on behalf of Gov. Gray Davis during the ceremony thanking Greenshields for his work with the AIDS community.
"You have touched the lives and eased the pain of thousands of Californians," read Oakes. "And on behalf of the people of California, I offer you best wishes and deepest respects."
Greenshields has made sure to know the dietary needs of each resident and is happy to pamper them with special menus that take into consideration not only their dietary needs -- such as food allergies, diabetic needs, difficulty swallowing -- but also preferential needs such as a certain ethnic leaning or a favorite food.
He always opens his kitchen to family and friends of residents.
"We had a commercial fisherman and his wife who also had a relative and who would bring fresh and smoked salmon," he said.
The National AIDS Memorial Grove is the nation's only federally recognized AIDS memorial. This official designation gave the Grove, as it is familiarly known in the Bay Area, a status comparable to that of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Mount Rushmore and the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor.
Since the disease was first reported two decades ago, an estimated 40 million people worldwide are now HIV positive, 28.1 million of them in sub-Saharan Africa, according to figures released by UNAIDS this week. The agency expects AIDS will kill 3 million people this year.
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