Most of the Kickstarter campaigns we cover on the site are centered around gadgets, games, or movies, but those aren’t the only things you can do with Kickstarter. Case in point, podcast hosts Jesse Thorn and Jordan Morris from Jordan, Jesse, Go! Kickstarted 1,000 ice cream cones to give to strangers. Yup. That’s a thing you can do.
Thorn and Morris launched a Kickstarter campaign to not only pay for the ice cream itself, but also to produce the above video about it. In total, 602 backers helped raise $9,785 to make this thing happen. As you can see in the video, each cone was handed out with a postcard of the person from the Internet who paid for it. Some backers can even expect a return postcard thanking them from someone who got ice cream.
The event was held at Sweet Action Ice Cream in Denver, Colorado. Sure enough, they gave away 1,000 cones to people in the store, and a few to some suspicious folks driving by. According to a YouTube comment by Thorn, Sweet Action even gave away a few additional free cones to anyone in the store when the 1,000th cone was handed out to a little boy.
So why give 1,000 ice cream cones to strangers? First — why not give 1,000 ice cream cones to strangers? Secondly, and the actual reason stated on the Kickstarter page:
Why? Because it’s summer, and everyone loves ice cream, and it would be fun to buy a thousand people ice cream. We’re not changing the world here, there will be no TED talk, we promise. We just think it would be a great thing to do with a weekend of our lives.
In an email, Thorn explained to me how he got the idea, and why he helped buy a Canadian pentathlete a laser gun:
I thought of the idea when I was buying an ice cream cone, to be honest. It was at a drugstore that sells 99 cent cones. I just though… “I could buy a thousand ice cream cones!” And I’d been sitting on that idea for years. Then last summer, a listener of ours was in the Olympics, competing for Canada as a Modern Pentathlete. We asked her how we could help, and we ended up raising the money to buy her a laser gun, which is what they use for target shooting. I figured if we could raise thousands for a laser gun, ice cream should be easy. Basically our listeners are the best.
I don’t live in Denver. I didn’t get any ice cream, and most likely neither did you, but come on. That video didn’t make you feel at least a little bit good inside? You can’t tell me buying 1,000 ice cream cones for strangers doesn’t make the world a better place.
Jordan, Jesse, Go! releases every Monday, and I can’t recommend it highly enough.
Immortal power. Plug it in.
(via YouTube, Jordan, Jesse, Go!)
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