For anyone with a sweet tooth, don’t miss the 2022 Newburyport Chocolate Tour, a mouthwatering day filled with chocolaty treats from local retailers. On Saturday, October 1st, from 12 – 4 pm, over 30 shops in downtown Newburyport will be offering up sweet treats to patrons with a chocolate tour ticket. This wonderful annual event in its 19th year, is hosted by volunteers from the Central Congregational Church and 100% of the NET proceeds are used to support local nonprofits.

The Newburyport Chocolate Tour is a great way to experience and explore downtown while also indulging in chocolate! From specialty stores to bakeries, this indulgent event offers a great variety of participants, allowing you to shop your way through town while embarking on the chocolate tour.

Purchase tickets for this delicious event that helps to promote awareness of our local Newburyport small businesses! Advanced tickets can be purchased at one of the following locations: Affamata/Port Plums in the Tannery, Brass Lion, the Candy Man or the Greater Newburyport Chamber of Commerce. You can also purchase tickets online. While tickets are available for purchase the day of the event for $25, be warned, the Chocolate Tour limits sales to 400 total tickets and the event typically sells out.

Kick off the fun at the Newburyport Chocolate Tour starting point, the Unitarian Universalist Church, 26 Pleasant Street, where you will get a map of all the tasty stops and a bag to collect what you manage to not eat immediately! There will also be some chocolate themed baskets for raffle, so grab some tickets to try your luck when you pick up your map.

The Chocolate Tour motto, “Eat Chocolate. Be Happy. Do Good.“, sums up this delicious tour as 100% of net proceeds are donated to local nonprofit organizations. This year’s proceeds go to: Prescription Refill  & Transportation Programs for Elders, Greenstone Gives, “Meatball” Amesbury Police newest K-9 and the Newburyport Arts Collective (NAC). View more about these wonderful local organizations below. You can truly feel happy eating chocolate AND donating to great causes.

The Chocolate Tour needs and greatly appreciates volunteers interested in helping run this wonderful event. If you are available to be surrounded by smiles and sweet treats, e-mail Diane at newburyportchoclatetour@gmail.com to sign-up.

For more fun happenings in Newburyport, be sure to check out our full events calendar!

2022 Chocolate Tour Benefactors:

Prescription Refill and Transportation Programs for Elders

This is the 10th year that the Chocolate Tour has supported these prescription refill and transportation programs for elders run by our local Councils on Aging (Amesbury, Newburyport, Salisbury and Newbury).  The funds help elders cover co-pays and other medical and transportation needs that often are beyond the elder’s weekly budget. By having a bit of cash readily available, a staff member can immediately help an elder.  Nothing fancy and it works.

Greenstone Gives

This local Amesbury group came together in Spring of 2022 when they saw a need to help families faced with disruptions in their family due to unforeseen circumstances (job loss/change, COVID related upsets etc.). Often children would lose the stability of after school activities and other familiar routines as their parents struggle with unexpected changes in their family life.  This enterprising group of caring parents have launched a program to help these families in a confidential, supportive manner.  We are delighted to highlight this grass roots effort by welcoming Greenstone Gives as one of our Chocolate Tour 2022 beneficiaries.

“Meatball” Amesbury Police newest K-9

“Meatball” recently joined the Amesbury Police Department as a drug detection dog as well as a skilled police partner to his handler, Tommy Nichols.  He will be following in the paw steps of Achilles who is soon to retire from active duty with the department.  “Meatball ‘s” food, training and equipment are entirely dependent on financial donations. We look forward to welcoming “Meatball” to our community and thank him and his predecessor, Archilles, for their special skills and work to make our communities safer.

Newburyport Arts Collective (NAC)

With the tremendous upset of COVID on all art related activities, early on, local art groups joined together to support one another during those very trying times.  The Newburyport Arts Collective has continued and grown offering a wealth of art related events to engage all ages in the art world of the greater Newburyport area.  We are pleased to include the Collective as one of our beneficiaries of 2022.