Home is where the heart is.

In 1999, Generations Foundation’s first home was in our own home. Adrian and I operated the charity from our basement for two years. We awoke to faxes coming in and attended to all manner of communication, including phone calls and emails from morning till night.

Walter Lyng, then principal of St. Gabriel Elementary School, agonized that his students were coming to school with inappropriate food and requested help from the newly formed Generations Foundation.

At the outset, generous donors provided necessary funds for the hot meals and transportation. We eagerly delivered the freshly cooked meals from La Stanza in St. Laurent (now in St. Leonard) to St. Gabriel School in the Point for 200 children.

Board meetings were held in various conference rooms with the hospitality of kind Montrealers and soon food and toys were collected and stored as needed. We quickly expanded to snacks for 11 other schools and within two years outgrew our basement.

Board members secured capital for “bricks and mortar” and with our hopes held high, we moved downtown in November 2001. Our new quarters were plagued with two fires. No one was hurt and our new location, fortunately, just need cleaning and a new garage door.

We were known back then as the “Miracle on Notre Dame Street.”

In feeding more than 7,700 schoolchildren in 96 schools and learning centres daily from the Generations home, we most definitely can say that “miracles” of the right kind are performed each day by the entire Generations Foundation “family.”

514-933-8585, www.generationsfoundation.com