A man who made a lot of people smile last month when he posted a Craigslist ad offering frustrated Vancouver house hunters “infinite love for $0” is now on the receiving end of lots of love.
A social media campaign called #EatCarrotsForBrice was started in honour of Brice Royer, and now he’s paying the favour forward by linking the hashtag to Allergy Awareness Week, which runs from April 13 to 19.
The campaign started after he told his mother he wasn’t feeling well and was sick of eating mostly carrots.
“My mom took a bunch of carrots and tried to eat and kiss them all,” he says. “It was so hilarious, it cheered me up so much, we took a picture of it,” he says.
Royce has a gastrointestinal tumour that left him allergic to many foods. Carrots are the only food he can eat consistently without pain, so he eats them for three meals a day. He does eat small amounts of other foods, like turkey, but almost everything is intolerable.
After posting his mother’s carrot commiserating photo to his Facebook wall, he started getting more pictures of people kissing and eating carrots.
Someone suggested he use the spontaneous #EatCarrotsForBrice hashtag to raise awareness for World Allergy Organization’s annual allergy week, and he embraced the idea.
“I thought this would be a good idea to use my pain and turn it into something meaningful and fun for everyone,” he says. “I don't want anyone to fundraise for me,” he adds. “I'm not looking for anything except a little carrot love on (April) 19th.”
One of his favourite shows a bag of baby carrots arranged on a plate in the shape of a heart, with the words “Brice, we carrot about you!”
Royer says the support is helping him with his illness, which is currently being treated with a mix of conventional and alternative medicine.
“It makes me want to wake up and live,” he says of the friendly posts, adding he plans to print all the photos and put them up on the currently blank wall above his bed.
“So when I feel lousy and feel like giving up,” he explains, “I'll know there are supporters out there cheering me on to keep going.”
