She thought she could change the world. In her 51 years, Gabriella Micallef came closer than most.

Her family, friends and many of the once-homeless people whose lives she touched gathered at a large Catholic church in the shadow of Casa Loma last Saturday to commemorate the remarkable woman — founder of the Homes First Foundation, which raises funds to provide permanent homes for street people and psychiatric survivors; co-owner of Hollywood Foods, which manufactures and sells high protein, low carb pasta; author; marathon runner; world traveller; and proud mother — taken too soon by lung cancer.

Micallef came to Canada at four years of age from her family’s ancestral home in Malta. She graduated from Ryerson University determined to right injustices, champion people who were marginalized and reduce imbalances in power.

She began by writing and producing documentaries about female empowerment.

Then she threw her passion into fighting homelessness, first as a front-line worker at the Homes First Society, a charity dedicated to finding a lasting solution to homelessness, later as the creator and director of its fundraising arm, the Homes First Foundation. Every January, the foundation holds its hallmark event, Coldest Night, a fundraiser attended by developers, financiers, lawyers and high-tech entrepreneurs.

In 2006, Micallef was diagnosed with advanced lung cancer and told there was no chance of recovery. That didn’t slow her down. But it did shift her focus. She transferred her fervour to healthy living and packing as much into her foreshortened life as she could.

The development of "more than pasta" (with her sister Margot), her running and her travel, including a trip to Antarctica, came during that phase of her life. She completed her last marathon five weeks before her death.

To her family and friends, Micallef will be remembered for her strength of character, her ability to live life to the fullest and her boundless willingness to give.

To thousands of Torontonians, she will be remembered as the founder of Coldest Night, which put homelessness on the corporate radar.

Micallef’s approach — reaching out to the business sector to sponsor the conversion of warehouses, rundown apartment blocks, dilapidated hotels and vacant homes into supportive housing — had its critics.

They didn’t want to let Ottawa, Queen’s Park or the city off the hook for building affordable housing. They didn’t want the poor to feel dependent on bankers, businessmen and developers. They didn’t want to embrace social innovations hatched in the United States. (Micallef drew her inspiration from the Times Square Hotel in Manhattan, a decaying eyesore transformed into an attractive, successful supportive housing facility by a non-profit group called Common Ground.) And they didn’t like the idea of forging alliances with corporate executives.

But as time passed and it became clear governments weren’t going to assume primary responsibility for the homeless, other social agencies started following her lead.

Woodgreen Community Services was one of the first. Its Homeward Bound residence for homeless single mothers was made possible by generous grant from Ed Clark, president and chief executive officer of the TD Bank Financial Group. The on-site apartments are part of a "campus" in the city’s east end that provides high-school dropouts with children with a safe place to live and child care while they finish school, earn a college diploma and work as interns at Toronto businesses.

Raising the Roof is another example. It has developed an extensive network of corporate supporters that includes Direct Energy, the Home Depot, UPS, five banks, five broadcasters, four law firms, four investment companies, two pharmaceutical makers, a brewery, a winery and 25 other commercial enterprises to back its fight against homelessness.

City hall, too, was influenced by Micallef’s thinking.

She died too soon. But the seeds she planted will blossom and multiply.