In front of a live audience at the Convenience Industry Council of Canada's National Summit, I sat down with Jean-François Archambault. JF is a beautiful human being devoting his life to fighting food insecurity. It is also a powerful love story between Mother and Son and how her ten-year unsuccessful battle with cancer took JF to a crossroads, offering two very different paths. The first was to take away his sadness and darkness by ending his life; the second was to do something with it.

Thankfully for millions of Canadians, JF chose to dream big and do bigger. Too many Canadians live paycheck-to-paycheck and rely on food banks, social assistance and the generousity of friends and family to survive. JF dreamed of feeding people versus landfills with the massive amount of food wasted in the hospitality sector.

JF's story is inspiring and remarkable. He leaves his successful career in hospitality to form La Tablée des Chefs, a non-profit organization whose mission can be summed up in two ways. Feed today to fight against food insecurity and educate youth for tomorrow to develop their food autonomy.

What La Tablée des Chefs has done should be studied around the world. In twenty years, they have distributed more than 15 million cooked meals and contributed to the culinary education of more than 50,000 youth by developing their food autonomy through various educational programs.

And what JF teaches all of us is following your heart, understanding the fragility of our time, and dreaming and doing is what inspires change.

I close the show by offering my three takeaways, why being involved in our community matters, and then talking about a hub called My Money Matters that offers financial advice to help navigate the realities of today.

Have Scottie Tissues close at hand and be prepared to cheer for a human who almost said no to his life and is now impacting millions of others.

To find out more about La Tablée des Chefs, click here: https://www.tableedeschefs.org/en/

My Money Matters. https://www.rbcroyalbank.com/en-ca/my-money-matters/

Convenience Industry Council of Canada - https://convenienceindustry.ca/