Eating and Scooping Ice Cream for a Great Cause

Author: Stephanie Yee, C’08

This past Saturday, I scooped 15 gallons of ice cream at the 13th annual “all-you-can-eat” ice cream Super Scooper event.

Event Banner

Each year during the 4th of July weekend, the Joshua Kahan Fund hosts its annual event at Penn’s Landing. 100% of the net proceeds go towards pediatric leukemia research and annual pediatric prom at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. For a $7.00 donation, you get a spoon and admission into a large tent filled with many different ice cream stations. You can go to as many stations as you wish and taste as much ice cream as you want. The event runs 12-5pm each day, and you can stay for as long as you want. Can anything be better? Ben & Jerry’s, Häagen-Dazs, Bassett’s, Friendly’s, Jack & Jill, Turkey Hill, Breyer’s, water ice, and more. You name it, and it was there. Talk about a childhood dream come true.

Right Side of the Tent

My group arrived at the tent at 10AM. Our shift was 10:30AM-3PM, but we arrived early to find a good parking spot. We checked in at the volunteer table, received our free t-shirt, free hat, and shiny blue volunteer wristband. At 11AM, the volunteers were gathered together for a quick speech, group photo, and free lunch (yep, they fed us, too – so nice!) We learned that the Joshua Kahan Fund had already raised over $900,000 for CHOP, and they expected to pass $1,000,000 that weekend! After lunch, we washed out hands, put on our gloves, and then the chaos began.
I was stationed at the Jack & Jill table with two other Penn alumni. We scooped strawberry ice cream for three hours straight. We saw excited kids, tired kids, and kids screaming of brain freeze and tummy aches. We saw adults there by themselves, adults chaperoning their kids, and adults chaperoning other people’s kids. We also saw adults acting like kids. It was all-you-can-eat ice cream – what do you expect?

The Crowd

After our shift was over, I tried a vanilla sundae ice cream, black cherry ice cream, and black raspberry ice cream. After that, I was ice-creamed out. Today, I heard from the event organizers that they passed their $1,000,000 mark this weekend. Hurrah for volunteer work, hurrah for ice cream, and hurrah for Penn Alumni!

Half of the Penn Alumni Club of Philadelphia members who volunteered at the Super Scooper event standing in front of Turkey Hill ice cream and a Turkey Hill cow