Birth Oct. 13, 1996
Raleigh, NC
Death Nov. 19, 2024
Siem Reap, Cambodia
Details of service
A funeral was held for Shelby on November 28 and 29, 2024 at the Preypdoa Pagoda outside Siem Reap. Shelby’s parents, brother, Khmer and expat family and friends, and former students attended, as did others via streaming. In lieu of flowers, please donate to Honour Village Cambodia at https://www.justgiving.com/honourvillagecambodia, the NGO school for Khmer children to which Shelby dedicated the last 10 years of her life and which runs almost exclusively on donations from outside Cambodia.
On November 19, 2024, our sweet Shelby passed away in Siem Reap, Cambodia from a head trauma. She was barely 28 years old. Shelby was born in Raleigh, North Carolina, and moved to Vermont at eight-months-old, growing up in Jeffersonville and Waterbury. After visiting Cambodia in June 2014, Shelby served most of the next 10 years as a volunteer English teacher in a small rural village outside of Siem Reap.
Through the NGO Honour Village Cambodia (HVC) Shelby impacted the lives Khmer children by teaching and community outreach. Shelby also actively supported her students outside of school and after their graduation. Shelby often spent time with her former students, ranging from Karaoke outings to the Bon Om Touk (Cambodian Water Festival) to coffee dates. She helped her former students get jobs, freely gave them money to repair or replace motorbikes necessary for transportation to work, contributed to the cost of their medical care, and encouraged and facilitated their pursuit of college. She did anything and everything she could to improve their lives, bringing duffel bags full of children’s clothing, books, and medical supplies she purchased in the USA to her “kids” and their families. She loved her students and HVC. Shelby’s experiences at HVC and in the surrounding community transformed her. She grew and flourished and found her true purpose in life. HVC allowed her to channel her amazing capacity for love to children who needed it, and she received love in return.
Shelby was a clever and innovative teacher, a voracious reader and podcast consumer (especially of the fantasy genre), loved the company of young children and dogs, and enjoyed listening to K-Pop and watching the NHL, the New England Patriots and college hoops. As a child, she skied with her father and brother, cherished Winnie the Pooh, Harry Potter and the Greek myths, loved making thumbprint cookies with her family during the holidays, and found wonder, magic, and beauty in the world where others saw none. She spoke conversational Khmer and learned its written form at the University of Hawaii.
A fellow HVC volunteer observed, “Shelby touched the lives of so many and really did make a difference to a lot of people’s lives. She gave people opportunities that they just wouldn’t have had without her and a lot of people wouldn’t be where they are now without her.” Another volunteer reflected, “The way that she has dedicated herself to the children at HVC and her community in Cambodia is something so brave and admirable. She spent every minute doing what she believed in and brought so much joy to so many people. I have always admired Shelby for doing what she was passionate about and never letting those people down. She will be so dearly missed by the community she built in Cambodia and all of her (HVC volunteer) friends in Scotland too.”
Shelby is survived by parents Craig and Kasie Nolan, brother Leonardo Charles Nolan, grandparents Kay Henderson and Sonny and James Nolan, aunt Elizabeth Warren, uncles Bradley and Christopher Nolan, and cousins Elias, Oliver, and Frank Nolan. Shelby was predeceased by her grandfather Charles Henderson.
