Marine Veteran Goes For Crowdfunding For His "Crayons Ready To Eat" (CRE) Business
Gungho Cowboy
25 Feb 2021
A joke about U.S. Marines is now a true-to-life thing. A Marine veteran and his business partner have developed edible and colourable crayons that they are ready to produce and ship to customers, provided that he gets enough funding and support to make this joke come true.
Whilst we haven’t seen for ourselves a Marine eating crayons, it is a joke amongst the branches of the U.S. Military that the Marines eat crayons as they are the least intelligent amongst the services. But of course, many would disagree. But the Marines embraced the joke and making it their own just like how they turned other terms of non-endearment about them.
The people behind Crayons Ready To Eat Llc. (CRE) are by Frank Manteau and Cassandra Gordon with Frank being a former Marine and Cassandra is the pastry chef who helped create the CREs. Frank explains how CRE came to life.
In the Fall of 2017 I was working on a project for the El Capitan High School Color Guard using crayons to color a project. As I put a color in my mouth to grab other one the question of is there a edible crayon. Found my answer. Nope. So I reach out to an old co-worker from my O Reilly Auto Part days that went to school for baking and making pastries. Why because I’m a wood Worker not a Chocolatier. So you guessed it she’s the brains behind bringing the CRE’s™ to life so the world can have the 1st ever Edible/Writable Crayons.
The CREs are of different colours but they are not in the same shape as crayons, a little more triangular in shape by design so that they don’t roll off and that for kids who get their hands on CRE, parents will be able to say that they can eat them and that the real crayons are a no go for them to chew on. Each CRE is a vanilla-flavoured chocolate.
Now, they have turned to crowdfunding, using Fund The First crowdfunding platform used by the military, first responders and medical professionals. With an aim of raising US$75,000.00, they explain where they money is going into:
We are asking for your support to help us ship our delicious edible crayons. The $75,000 will cover our started up expenses, legal fees, facility rent, custom molds, licensing, certification, and permits required to ship our product.
It will also cover marketing, website upgrade, and pay back friends and family that have help us get started.
Either for fun, curiousity or for some serious need of crayons to eat, you can support the project by pledging at their project page.
Task & Purpose has a good story on the journey of Frank and Cassandra in making CRE ever since they started developing it in 2017.