That $55,000 Kickstarter Potato Salad Party Actually Happened
Back in July, Zack Brown asked Kickstarter for $10 to make potato salad ("I don't know what kind yet") He ended up with $55,000, and his modest project sparked a debate between people who found it harmless and fun and those who say it reveals a privileged internet class with too much money and not a clue how to spend it.
In the rush to decide whether Brown's project was a noble one, everyone quickly forgot that he had obligated himself to throw a big, expensive, potato salad party. Unlike many other well-funded Kickstarter projects, Brown actually delivered: PotatoStock happened Saturday in downtown Columbus, Ohio.
The "huge" finished product featured live music, food trucks, and beer, plus more than 3,000 pounds of potatoes, the Columbus Dispatch reported.
Over the summer, critics of the project argued Brown should just make his original batch of potato salad and donate the excess thousands of dollars to charity, but Kickstarter policy stopped him from doing that.
But Brown found a loophole that allowed him to turn Potato Salad into more than another Dumb Internet Thing: He raised more than $20,000 in corporate donations outside of the original campaign, and plans to donate that money, along with all proceeds from PotatoStock, to charities working against hunger and homelessness.
He expects that his original Kickstarter supporters will received their promised backer rewards, including t-shirts and a potato salad recipe book, by December.
