For many of us, the heart symbol is a bit of a ubiquitous cliché today; it says love about as meaningfully as a candy cane says Christmas. But every time Heidi Ash makes one of her raspberry silk hearts or mint mini kiss hearts, she is reminded of the miraculous event that saved and changed her life… She spent more than seven months on the waiting list for a heart transplant, and finally got one in March 2000 at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester… The candy got such a positive response, Ash decided to take a leap of faith in 2008 and opened a commercial kitchen in Superior, Wis. She was the 185th person to receive a heart transplant at Mayo, so she named her company in honor of it: 185Chocolat.

Star Tribune, by Jon Tevlin, 02/13/2012

Tags: 185Chocolat, heart transplant, Heidi Ash, Mayo Clinic Rochester, Transplant