Non-Dairy Ice Cream Tasting!

So! I was gone for two weeks - and then home for a week... During that quick week home again, I was busy planning and putting on a great event: our "Ice Cream Sunday - Non Dairy Ice Cream Tasting." It was so fun!! I worked on it with my friend Victor and his wife Jocelyn.

I contacted a bunch of different ice cream companies & got TONS of ice cream donated. We even had cones, sprinkles and chocolate sauce donated! We had loads of people show up - lots of kids and families especially and everyone got to taste as many flavors as they wanted. I think we had 19 or 20 flavors in all. I think everyone found a new favorite!

Here are some little voters. Everyone got an ice cream sundae sticker to put next to their favorite flavor.
I also made a little ice cream cone poster for people to get their pictures taken. This beautiful dog came and we got her picture too!

Here is a sweet little beauty enjoying a scoop of Good Karma Organic Rice Divine Carrot Cake flavor. Have you ever tried it? It's great!

Here are some of the many flavors we had ... it was so fun. This event was one of many ways that I try to find creative methods to introduce people to veganism, or at least vegan options.

Oh! The fatigue of serving all that non-dairy ice cream!

A cute little non-dairy ice cream appreciator.

Here are some happy samplers! We charged $3.00 for anyone ages 6 and over, and kids 5 & under were free. Then, people could have as many tastes, cups, and cones as they wanted. Oh yeah!

What a sweet little pea!

I encourage you all to put on events like this in your community - it's a lot of work, but it's also really fun and it's a great way to get people enthusiastic about their vegan options!!

To put on an event like this, you'll need to do a few things:

pick your theme (ice cream tasting, veggie burger tasting etc)

come up with a date, location, and time. try to find a location that you can use for free or very cheap (like a park or something)

contact all the companies who you would like to get donations from and present them with your very specific plan - how many people you expect, how you will acknowledge their donations, why your event will serve them (you'll be getting great exposure for their product, etc), why you feel their products will be an important inclusion at the event (it's a great non-soy ice cream or gluten-free burger, for example). You can usually find out who to contact by looking on a companies web site and giving them a call.

meanwhile, also get started on your publicity. Write up a press release and send it out to your local newspapers and radio stations. This is easy to do. Be concise and include the Who, Where, When, Why, & How Much. Include your name, number and email address for people to contact you with questions. It's also sometimes nice to request an RSVP ... most people won't RSVP, but still it gives you some ideas about how many people are coming.

find a few friends or family members or people who are deeply indebted to you, and draft them into service as helpers!

have fun!!!

If you are interested, feel free to ask me more questions!