We’re suckers for a good Kickstarter project — all that hope and passion and entrepreneurship, and you can be part of it for less than the cost of a dinner out. The most recent one we heard of is called The Placebo Chocolate Effect (we’re fans based on the name alone). The story reads like the dude version of Eat, Pray, Love: Daniel Jacobs set off on a trip around the world in search of a cure for a deep sadness he felt (hang in there, it gets better). Along the way he met a bunch of people who inspired him, including an old lady in Scotland who gave him a “prescription” for love — actually it was just these words scribbled on a piece of paper: “Take this love I give you, use it as often as you need, and share it when you are ready.” After meditating in Spain, volunteering at an orphanage in Guatemala, building a sustainable farm in Argentina, and writing beside painters in Chile (we’re not kidding), Daniel finally found love (of course he did), and then he discovered that love had been inside him all along (of course it was).
Okay, if this were a memoir, you’d have probably thrown it against the wall already, and if it were a movie starring Owen Wilson on a quest for meaning, you’d have probably walked out. But this is a Kickstarter project, remember. Daniel wanted to figure out a way to share the love, and while he was in Peru (where he fell in love), he saw chocolate everywhere. So he decided to create a company that would manufacture hefty, one-pound, organic, fair-trade chocolate bars that have words like love, joy, and courage engraved on them. (Kind of like those inspirational yoga pebbles, except you can eat them.) And as customers buy chocolate, the company in turn donates to people who could use a little inspiration in the form of a chocolate bar but can’t afford it — for example, this week they’re delivering chocolates to the Children’s hospital in Arequipa, Peru.
There are a million cynical things you could say about this project, but we think it’s kind of awesome. If you agree, you can be part of the venture by donating $25 via Kickstarter here.
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