Many celebrities are known for founding or maintaining involvement in charitable work. In the case of This Bar Saves Lives, the celebrity involvement is amazing and the work being done to better the world is delicious in many ways. Founded five years ago by four famous friends, including “The Good Place” actress Kristen Bell, the snack bar company has blossomed into a growing, well known brand that has bettered the lives of children all over the world. Now found in Starbucks stores all over the nation and available in other retailers as well as online, the purchase of this snack bar involves you, the consumer, in the fight to end childhood malnutrition all over the world.
At the re-launch event in Los Angeles, Her Campus was able to speak with some of the co-founders as well as some famous ambassadors of the brand. In order to better understand the company and their intentions, we went straight to the source for all the best information on how this company was created and how easy it is to be involved.
We began by speaking to co-founder and “Jane the Virgin” star Ryan Devlin about his involvement with this amazing company. We asked Ryan to explain his role in the organization and what inspired the start of it. He answered, “So I am one of the co-founders of This Bar Saves Lives, Myself, Kristen Bell, Todd Grinnell and Ravi Patel, there’s four of us, and the idea for This Bar Saves Lives sparked when Todd and I took a trip to Liberia many years ago and we saw the need for emergency food aid. We saw kids who are no different than kids here, I have a three year old so no different than my son, that just didn’t have the nutrition that they needed which is just wrong and tragic. Because every kid deserves a chance to grow up and thrive and change the world around them. So when we came back we said “Well look lets just do something about it” so we started This Bar Saves Lives at first a very small idea to help kids in one little area of Liberia, but the idea took off fortunately and you know here we are today in more than ten countries helping hundreds of thousands of kids with millions of packets of nutritional aid and it all just started with that little idea.”
After Ryan gave us an amazing understanding of where this brand began we were able to learn more from one of his co-founders Ravi Patel, who stars in hit shows like “Masters of None.” Ravi explained to us exactly how This Bar Saves Lives. Ravi told us, “For every bar that we sell we donate a meal packet to a child in need somewhere around the world through one of our many major NGO partners. So the whole reason we started this company is because of this thing right here called Plumpy Nut. Plumpy Nut is a meal packet that is prescribed to kids who are days away from potential death that are suffering from severe Malnutrition, which is the final stage of hunger. A child dies every ten seconds as a result of this. Plumpy Nut doesn’t need to be refrigerated, doesn’t need to be heated, it is given to these kids twice a day for eight to ten weeks and it brings them back to health…Its Incredible…Every time you buy a bar we donate a meal packet to a child in need.”
How AMAZING is that!? All we have to do to be involved is buy and enjoy this delicious bars. Some of the celebs involved defiantly enjoyed tasting these bars at the event! For us to better understand how this organization differs from other charities we spoke to “Pretty Little Liars” star Troian Bellisario and her “Suits” star husband Patrick Adams. We asked the couple what makes this organization different than other charitable organizations. Patrick started with, “I think it just embraces this concept of a one for one model of what like a TOMS shoes did so well which is that your going to but something anyway, what if we gave you the opportunity in that decision making process to buy it and then actually have that be a force for good in the world rather than just going into the pockets of a company that is just making granola bars and its really not that complicated of a business model, it is just about reaching out to these other companies around the world like Plumpy Nut who are responsible for making the nutritional packet and getting them on board and just working together. You are just tying all these businesses together and saying “how can we help” and in doing so I think that makes this passive moment that you have in your day when you are grabbing a snack or doing something and you can go, “oh I get to actually feel like that’s doing something good in the world’” Troian followed that with, “And I think it is also really wonderful because sometimes when companies purely rely on charity their can be an end you know, so people are willing to donate but after a while the donations run out then they have to ask for more donations, but when you are creating a really great product that people want to use, that people want to eat themselves or feed to their kids everyday, there is never an end to the charity, and that is what I think is so wonderful about this product.”
It was so great to learn just how important this work is to celebs like these. It definitely inspires many to do the same. Now you can help this snack bar brand grow and continue to help thousand of kids all over the world to thrive and make the world a greater place!
Follow This Bar Saves Lives on all social media platforms as well as the amazing stars involved!