Daniel Germain

Daniel Germain, CM CQ MSM (born 1964) is a Canadian philanthropist. He is president and founder of the Breakfast Club of Canada, a Canadian charity that promotes and assists the establishment and maintenance of school breakfast programs in Canada.[1] The Breakfast Club provides more than 48 million breakfasts every year to more than 250,000 students in over 1,900 schools across Canada.[2]

Daniel Germain
Born1964 (age 58–59)
Verdun, Quebec
Known forPresident and founder of the Breakfast Club of Canada

Background

Born in Verdun, Quebec, his parents broke up when he was young and he spent much of his childhood in foster care.[1] Struggling in school, he dropped out and spent his late teens and early 20s as a smalltime drug dealer, before resolving to change his life after getting arrested and spending some time in jail in the late 1980s.[1]

He joined a Canadian International Development Agency relief program to Mexico,[3] and participated in 60 aid trips to Mexico and Haiti over the next five years.[1]

Breakfast Club of Canada

In 1994, he launched a breakfast program at an elementary school in Longueuil, Quebec, which expanded into the Club des petits dejeuners du Québec.[4] The organization further expanded into the rest of Canada in 2005 as the Breakfast Club of Canada.[1]

In 2006, he created the Millennium Promise Summit, an annual conference of global leaders and activists on strategies to eliminate child poverty.[5]

Honours

In 2004, Germain was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal.[6] In 2007, he was made a Knight of the National Order of Quebec.[7]

In 2009, he was made a member of the Order of Canada[8] and in 2012 he was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal.[9]

In 2011, Correlieu Secondary School in Quesnel, British Columbia, upon learning that Germain had never completed his high school education, granted him an honorary high school diploma.[10]

References
  1. "Realizing extraordinary dreams". Montreal Gazette, April 13, 2009.
  2. "Staples Canada supports Giving Tuesday movement, partners with Breakfast Club of Canada". Canada NewsWire. November 22, 2018.
  3. "Visionary feeds children". Quesnel Cariboo Observer, October 22, 2009.
  4. "Breakfast club backed by minister". Montreal Gazette, November 3, 1998.
  5. "Clinton, Stronach to speak at global poverty conference". Waterloo Region Record, September 13, 2006.
  6. "Governor General announces 47 Meritorious Service Decorations". Canada NewsWire, April 21, 2005.
  7. "National Order of Quebec Citation" (in French).
  8. "Order of Canada Citation".
  9. "Daniel Germain receives Diamond Jubilee medal". Quesnel Cariboo Observer, June 8, 2012.
  10. "Quesnel high school grants Daniel Germain honorary high school diploma". Quesnel Cariboo Observer, June 30, 2011.
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