The Chocolate Fairy

The Chocolate Fairy found a satisfied audience outside the Broadway Cafe

The Chocolate Fairy was conceived in November 2010 and launched into action in a pilot stage on February 1, 2010. is a person who rides on a bicycle and delivers Chocolate to People who Need It. The Chocolate Fairy performs spoken word poetry and shares free high quality, high cocoa content chocolate. The chocolate fairy performances have many messages, including the idea that most people don’t have to stop eating sweets, they just need to use a little moderation. The chocolate fairy is a silly, gregarious, high energy person that enjoys the good things in life and knows that life can be sweeter for everyone.

This is another program that has been submitted to several funders, but is currently not funded. We can either use Connect Power resources to fund this program or seek additional support at a later time.

The Chocolate Fairy promotes honest information about medication and drug use in our country, that it’s important to choose substances that harm us the least that we can control the most. Most Americans don’t have enough information to make those choices.

The Chocolate Fairy can do four somewhat useful things:

1. Performances at churches, schools, mental health centers, peer support centers, and arts events. These are 30 minute to one hour shows that incorporates spoken word poetry, motivational speaking, and audience interaction to address the following topics. The Chocolate Fairy’s job is not to get people into the mental health system, but to help them get out and stay out by sharing peer support and stories of recovery from mental illness. The Chocolate Fairy is a fun person that can overcome many barriers to health presentations.

Wellness techniques and self-support strategies are discussed along with the key messages about sugar addiction, moderation vs. abstinence, and homelessness. One particular focus of this part of the program is enabling people in group homes to dream of living independently. Many people in these presentations will be seeing their first art show in years and for many it will be the first spoken word poetry performance they have ever heard. Collaborators for this section include NAMI – KS and MindFreedom International.

Key messages:

how people use food to make themselves feel better
how to set limits and practice moderation with your favorite comfort foods
how high quality chocolate differs from low quality chocolate with plenty of free samples
using chocolate to reduce cravings for other sweets
sugar addiction and how to beat it
the importance of exercise and how fun it is
moderation vs. abstinence
positive self-support strategies like exercise, meditation, spirituality, poetry, or connecting with friends

Performing the Chocolate Fairy poem in JC Nichols Park for two young people enjoying the warm spring day

2. Street based outreach to people in the community who never expected to see a chocolate fairy. This is a surprising version of the Chocolate Fairy who simply rides up to people on the community and announces that she is the Chocolate Fairy. So far everyone who has met her on the street says that they are In Need Of Chocolate. The Chocolate Fairy performs the Chocolate Fairy poem and many people get to experience art outside traditional art venues. Many people will learn for the first time the power and accessibility of spoken word poetry, which can be performed anywhere.

Sara “Miss Conception” Glass performing at the Kickoff Party for the 2010 Fringe Festival

3. Regional bicycle touring communities. The Chocolate Fairy often completes long bicycle journeys to other cities for work conferences. Two of these trips could be made during the grant period to Lawrence, Topeka, Warrensburg, or St. Joseph. The Chocolate Fairy will surprise people in small towns and communities all the way between Kansas City and her destination. Since she stops every ten miles or so, this will include quite a large range of communities.

4. Chocolate Fairy Ambassadors. Mini presentations of The Chocolate Fairy messages could be given by ten Chocolate Fairy ambassadors who are local artists. Each will give about five presentations of five minutes each to people in their regular social settings. Several ambassadors will also catch the Chocolate Fairy in action with video and photo documentation, including offers by very experienced and internationally recognized photographers Julie Denesha and Deanna Dikeman. Ambassadors will have the chance to sponsor three homeless people with phone and friendship contacts to develop long-term relationships as the journalist Steve Lopez did with Nathaniel Ayers in “The Soloist.”