Six-Year-Old & Family Trade Ice Cream For Smiles In Kentucky

Jun 25, 2020 by apost team

At the tender age of 6 years old, a little boy from Kentucky named Clark knew that he wanted to make a difference. In the blisteringly hot summer sun, Clark and children like himself were in dire need of some ice-cold relief. Their neighborhood lacked an ice cream truck; that's normally a fixture of any suburbanite lifestyle and has been for decades around the United States. The coronavirus crisis has only compounded the issue because of social distancing requirements and how few people want to take the risk of driving around to sell a consumable product.

For many would-be ice cream salesmen, it was simply not going to be profitable enough to take on the risk. Enter Clarke and his family, a team of community-focused go-getters who wouldn’t let the clouds of corona mar their summer. The idea came to Clark first because his father had access to a pickup truck. He thought it would be ideal to help him with his grand plan. After making a sign, he would be able to help pass out ice cream. But after hearing how difficult the economic situation was for so many other families, he elicited that it would only “cost” a smile in return!

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Kelly Reynolds, the mother of Clark, elaborates on her son's altruism. She says that ever since he was a toddler, he was always outstanding at sharing with everyone around him, even other children his age who he didn't know or otherwise just met. Kelly says that Clark is always at his happiest when giving rather than receiving. Her role in the mission was to not only be a part-time driver, but she also manned a loudspeaker to proudly advertise “ice cream!” to the whole community.

During the day of the big event, Clark stormed into his mother's bedroom and shouted “it's today!” they took their hand-painted signs and four different kinds of ice cream and loaded them all up into the family’s green pickup truck. The signs were partially made by Clark, but he had a little bit of help from his parents when it came to designing the look of the actual treats themselves. Children could choose between brown cow vanilla, chocolate fudge, sandwich-style, or orange vanilla.

Safety was a big concern for the family; they wanted to make sure that there was enough space where everyone could still adhere to social distancing. They first thought about handing out gloves to people so that they could accept the ice cream, but they decided that it would be too awkward. The next idea came from a random thought; it would be cool if they had some sort of delivery tube that they could use to give the ice cream to the other children.

Seizing the idea, the group grabbed a tube of cardboard and painted it to look like a candy cane. After measuring six feet, the tube was cut so that it could be used to slide the ice cream into the hands of the children outside the truck. Everyone from toddlers to teens took up the family’s offer; one little child smashed their piggy bank so that they could use their dollar to buy the ice cream, but that was turned down in favor or just a smile. Clark’s grandfather served as the family driver for the endeavor, and he commented that his grandson makes him proud every day of his life.

Have you or your friends ever sold ice cream or lemonade on a hot summer day? How much did you charge for it, and would you accept smiles as payment? Let us know; we want to hear your thoughts!