Nearly everyone likes ice cream! What a great way to get people together for some fun and make money for your school at the same time. Have an old-fashioned ice cream social, and watch the community come together to support your cause!
You can make true old-fashioned homemade ice cream, or find out where your favorite soft serve ice cream shop buys their mix. If you can’t swing the homemade, there is always ready-made ice cream from the grocery store. Any of these will work, or if you’re very industrious, use all three and everyone can have his or her favorite!
Using soft serve mix lets you freeze it in an old-fashioned ice cream freezer or regular soft serve ice cream machine. Look around a bit and you may find a vendor that will let you use a machine in exchange for advertising.
To keep your ice cream from melting, you can use coolers filled with ice. Put your ice cream cartons in close fitting plastic or metal containers to be sure that as the ice melts, it doesn’t get into the ice cream. You can use dry ice in place of regular ice, or you can put it in salted ice, which will keep it at a good consistency for serving.
If you use an old-fashioned ice cream recipe or soft serve mix and make it yourself, put it in containers as you make it the morning of the social and put it on dry or salted ice. If you are having the social inside the school building, there may be serving tables that freeze, or freezers you can use.
Don’t forget to have a variety of sprinkles, nuts, and syrups to make sundaes, plus cones for young and old alike. If you decide to add an old-fashioned flavor, have people make cakes, cookies, and fruit pies, also. The older folks attending will no doubt remember such events from when they were children. Besides, who doesn’t like pie, cake, or cookies with their ice cream!
Often these events were outside in a park or large yard in the late afternoon or evening. Wherever you have your event, be sure to provide places for people to sit and enjoy the ice cream and conversation. If they linger, they may even want seconds or decide they need some ice cream to take home. It would be a good idea to have containers just in case!
Set a price per serving ($3-5, depending on size and style), and as an added bonus sell wristbands for AYCE (All You Can Eat) for a little more ($7-10).
This fundraiser is guaranteed to be a blast!
