Impact Story: Miodrag Kovacic

Miodrag “Mikki” Kovacic credits a magazine article with changing his life.

Mikki was born and raised in Serbia, where he met and married a Canadian-Serbian woman, and the two had a baby. But after divorce, she moved back to Canada with their daughter. He followed, intent on staying in his child’s life.

The transition proved difficult for Mikki, and without a support system, mental health and addiction challenges began to take root.

“I never knew how to express myself,” he says. “Especially when it comes to emotions…I wouldn’t allow myself to show any vulnerability.”

Mikki remarried in Canada and had two more children, but both his mental health and addiction worsened. Eventually, his wife asked him to leave.

“I went from having a bachelor [apartment], to a room, to shelters,” Mikki says. He lived on the streets of Toronto for three years.

During that time, he remembers seeing a magazine profile of a man who had experienced homelessness and stayed in the same shelter as Mikki. After years of struggle, the man found his feet and started an IT business that had grown to employ dozens of people.

“That’s when it dawned on me that there was hope,” Mikki says.

With this sense of possibility and the support of a friend, Mikki was finally able to access the help he needed. While in rehab, he began contemplating starting a business. He was quickly drawn to truffles—a delicacy much rarer in Canada than in his native Serbia. Mikki wanted to combine two signature national flavours to create unique truffle-maple treats. With early support from a silent investor, he began bringing his vision to life, and credits Rise with helping him get his truffles to market—literally. With a Rise small business loan and other supports, he was able to build a product display booth to sell at local events.

But Mikki says Rise’s faith in him was worth more than the money.

“I was literally in tears…that somebody trusted me,” he says. “I burned so many bridges…and somebody believing in me…that was a huge thing.”

Mikki recently celebrated four years of sobriety. His business, Kovacic Truffles, is now well-established, selling at local markets and online. It’s also brought him closer to his children, who help with the family business and get to see dad in action.

“[Being an entrepreneur] gives me the opportunity to lead by example,” he says—not just for his kids, but his community.

Mikki donates a portion of his revenue to treatment centres that support people experiencing challenges similar to his. He hopes that by sharing his story and his success, he can spark the same hope in others that he found in that magazine years ago.

Congratulations to Miodrag Kovacic, recipient of the 2025 Dr. Paul Garfinkel Resilience Award.