Ice Cream Social
Practice
Choose a date. Emily sends a photo of the invite created by her children to the neighborhood text thread.
Set up a table. Have one end of the table for ice cream and one end for shared toppings.
Use paper bowls so clean up is easy.
Make it a neighborhood tradition. Have an ice cream social the same weekend every year to celebrate the beginning of summer.
“You can’t buy happiness, but you can buy ice cream, and that is pretty much the same thing.”
Ice cream is an almost guaranteed way to gather people. There’s a magical connection when people come together to enjoy the endless variations of frozen cream, milk, and sugar. An ice cream social is a sweet, and simple, way to spend time with your neighbors. It can be hosted on the driveway or in the apartment stairwell. Whatever the location, there is something universal about an ice cream social bringing people together.
Emily and Matt Duntsch have been hosting an ice cream social for their neighbors for the last 5 years. It is always on the Friday that begins Memorial Day weekend. It is a memorable way to mark the beginning of summer. It’s simplicity that makes an ice cream social successful from Emily’s perspective. “Less is more. Set a table up. Put out some ice cream, and invite everyone to bring toppings.” “And,” she adds with a smile, “have your kid make the flyer.”
Emily and Matt discovered having neighbors gather on their driveway each year for an ice cream social was a way to reconnect with those who they have not seen because of full school schedules, and make introductions to new neighbors who have recently moved on the block. They rely on neighbors who have come over the years to encourage others to attend. Emily offers a tip, “It helps having it on a long weekend.” The front yard gathering the last weekend of May has become an annual tradition for the homes in Virginia Village on Atlantic Avenue.
There’s an unspoken agreement by all of the children, and most of the parents, there isn’t a limit of ice cream or toppings at this event. It’s a decadent celebration where too many toppings are piled on top of bowls full of frozen flavors. Any ice cream left has melted into a sweet mess by the end of the evening. A brief spray with the garden hose cleans off the table and driveway. The sweet and simple labor of hosting an ice cream social each summer is well worth it for the memories of neighbors being together as twilight slowly departs and summer begins.
Thank you to Emily & Matt Duntsch for their contribution to this article and their practice of hosting an ice cream social for their neighborhood.
