The Kickstarter project for potato salad has ended with $55,000

A Kickstarter project to create a batch of potato salad closed this morning. Potato Salad was successfully funded at $55,492, or $55,482 more than its original goal of $10. The creator, Zack Danger Brown of Columbus, Ohio, has promised to fulfill all of the Kickstarter’s rewards and stretch goals. However, the enormous success of the project left Brown with more than enough money to make all the potato salad. So he’s putting the funds toward a free “PotatoStock 2014” gathering in Columbus and, more seriously, making a significant contribution to a civic foundation with the goal of helping Columbus-area nonprofits end hunger and homelessness.

The infamous Kickstarter campaign to fund the creation of a bowl of potato salad wrapped up this morning with $55,492 raised from 6,911 backers for that purpose. And with that money, campaign architect Zach Danger Brown plans to hold a music festival. Brown said in a campaign update this week that “PotatoStock 2014” will be held at the Columbus Commons in Columbus, Ohio, which he says he’s reserved from noon to 8pm on September 27. The show will be free, and concessions will be sold to benefit a charity fund. But more importantly, this festival is where those who earned the “get a bite of the potato salad” tier will get that backer reward. But back to that charity, since the amount of cash being funneled into this campaign has, uh, been a pretty big point of controversy this month. Brown says he’ll be using “a significant portion of the remaining money” (beyond what’s required for backer rewards and the PotatoStock and the potato salad itself, of which there will be a lot) to create a new permanent anti-hunger fund with The Columbus Foundation, an entity set up to handle such funds. The fund is intended “to help Central Ohio’s non-profits end hunger and homelessness.”