Our History

The Sandwich Foundation is being launched and run by 25 year-old Amanda Paes, of Calgary. Daughter of a highly educated immigrant family from India, Amanda’s parents faced an intense struggle to cope with the everyday life that new immigrant faced in 1996 when they first arrived in Canada.  They later served over 20 years to help the hungry through the Drop-Inn Centre and the Feed the Hungry program.  Amanda began volunteering from the age of 8, when she was only allowed to sort and bag snacks.  By age 12, she had designed a simple system to track the homeless hamper program which is still in use today. When Amanda recently was told by the chef at the Drop-Inn Centre that they are short 400-500 sandwiches per day, she was moved to help. In addition, she had recently moved on from her job in oil and gas, as had many of her co-workers. She decided to start the foundation to help other Calgarians in need.