Potato Chips and a Story as Nicholas Kristock’s Smile Goes Nationwide
(Mark Stowers, Aug. 12, 2019)
Novi, MI- Nicholas Kristock’s smile is eye catching – at least Lay’s Potato Chips thinks so. The Novi resident and Oakland University grad was recently chosen to be one of 30 Smile with Lays models. Kristock first thought it was a “phishing” email from the famous chip maker that was “too cool to be true” but after digging in figured out the offer was legit.
“Facebook does the marketing for Lays and they were trying to put 30 people across America that were spreading smiles on a billion bags of Lay’s potato chips,” Kristock said.

An algorithm for the process chose Kristock and he was off to Dallas for a photo and video session where he was chosen to be the smile on three different flavors of Lay’s.

“There’s about 100 million bags out there across the country with my grin on the front and the Fleece and Thank You story on the back,” he said. “The idea is to take a picture with the bag and spread the smiles with the Smiles Campaign. I’m on Cheddar and Sour Cream, Wavy Hickory BBQ and Deep Dish Pizza that is a Subway exclusive.”
Fleece and Thank You is Kristock’s non-profit company that makes fleece blankets for children patients in hospitals across Michigan. He has plans to cover the Midwest and eventually the United States with enough fleece blankets for children in hospitals each year.
“It’s a charity I’ve run for four years now and we service all Children’s Hospitals with their fleece blankets,” the former Division I soccer player said. “Every blanket we deliver has a personal video message from the person or group that made it to the child who receives it. The child can actually send a thank-you message back to them as well. It’s really good for the child because they get a much-needed connection with the outside world.”
Fleece and Thank You makes 32,000 blankets every year through volunteers to distribute in Michigan.
“That’s one for every child in the state of Michigan that goes into the hospital for inpatient treatment,” he said. “We currently work with all 28 children’s hospitals across Michigan to service them with blankets.”
The need for the Midwest will be about 150,000 blankets annually and the number to cover the country would be just under a million – 960,000 blankets annually. Kristock’s other non-profit endeavors include a microlending company to help parents with children’s medical bills, a tech company for non-profits and a social impact subscription box entitled Crate of Good where different charities and social impact items are used. His company will also attempt to break the Guinness Book of World Records by tying at least 2,500 fleece blankets at an event in September. The current record is 2,000.
To learn more, check out Fleeceandthankyou.org,  Or buy a bag of Lay’s with Kristock’s smile and read the back.