A couple of years ago we were honored to make the acquaintance of Mr. Shane Evans, the illustrator of numerous award-winning books for children, including “Black Jack: The Ballad of Jack Johnson”, and “Osceola: Memories of a Sharecropper’s Daughter”, winner of the Boston Globe – Horn Book Award.
Initially, we just sat down in the studio an vibed…we talked about our “instinctive travels”, life, love, design, music, art…etc. I think we all quickly realized how small the world really is as it relates to our circle of friends and key influencers and ultimately how passionate we are about global entrepreneurship and philanthropy, in thought and practice. Our conversation progressed from talking about our individual goals to thinking about how similar we are in our collaborative natures, which quickly lead us to conclude that we’ve got to work together on something meaningful.
At that time we had been working feverishly on R&D prototypes for disaster relief modules (which I refer to as our legos – see slide show below). Devan had recently returned from his second trip to Port Au Prince, Haiti post earthquake and we were sharing some of the high and low points of our concepts based upon Devan’s intel from having boots on the ground. Shane began sharing with us excerpts from a children’s book he had been illustrating in collaboration with his childhood friend Taye Diggs. Shane described the book as a movement in two words…“Chocolate Me”.
If you haven’t seen the book be sure to check it out at www.chocolatemetoo.com. It’s a heartwarming journey of a child’s struggle with wanting to fit in until he realizes that there’s actually something “sweet” about our individual differences. With that as our theme we started re-conceptualizing one of our “lego” modules as a pop-up cupcake stand/cafe aimed at fueling the movement and promoting the essence of “Chocolate Me”…the “sweet” that exists within all of us.
We look forward to continuing our journey with Mr. Evans…and if you happen upon one of our stands in downtown Kansas City, or Chicago, or Los Angeles, or New York, or wherever in the near future…be sure to stop, eat a cupcake, read the book, grab a T-Shirt, join the movement!
