Even if the weather is less than cooperative, summer still calls for copious amounts of ice cream. Whether you’re supporting local shops or ordering pints from across the country, give these do-gooders’ ice cream a taste.
Purple Door Ice Cream
Just opening in April, Purple Door in Milwaukee is committed to using local ingredients as frequently as possible. Purple Door contributes 10 cents from every ice cream pint purchase, plus portions of other ice cream profits to Milk for Milwaukee, which collaborates with homeless shelters to provide fresh milk for its residents. We’re dying to try the whiskey flavored ice cream. Order pints at icecreamsource.com.
Ben and Jerry’s
All of the brownie chunks that Chocolate Fudge Brownie and Half Baked contain come from Greyston Bakery, located in New York and dedicated to providing jobs for the unemployed, according to a Huffington Post article. The non-profit Greyston Foundation, the parent charity of the bakery, provides childcare, housing, health care, job training and a computer-learning center for low-income residents in southwest Yonkers. Bonus points if you get to Vermont, aka Ben and Jerry’s motherland.
Berkey Creamery
Located on the Penn State campus, Berkey Creamery is the largest university creamery in the nation. They make about 100 ice cream flavors, including Peachy Paterno, named after coach Joe Paterno. The ice creamery donated the flavor’s $4,000 revenue from 2012 to a charity that works to combat child sexual abuse in light of the Paterno publicity. Proceeds for the creamery as a whole funnel funds for graduate assistant and undergraduate intern positions in the university’s food science department.
Three Twins Ice Cream
Three Twins in California sources its milk and cream less than 20 miles from its factory, and prides itself in serving rich flavors with creamy textures. Its organic ice cream is “not in a sprouts-and-flaxseed, hippy dippy kind of way” its website assures, and proceeds help their personal initiative, Ice Cream for Acres, an effort to protect land plots of at least ten acres for each pint purchased. Marin Agricultural Land Trust (MALT), Marin Organic, Sonoma Land Trust and Land Trust of Napa County are other organizations for which Three Twin contributes. Chocolate Orange Confetti, come to mama.
Cold Stone Creamery
Franchised ice cream spot Cold Stone Creamery has been partners with the Make-A-Wish foundation for over 10 years, generating more than $4 million to assist the granting of wishes for children with life-threatening illnesses. For one day in September, Cold Stone donates $1 for each sale of a Gotta Have It sized treat. Cold Stone at Northwestern delivers after 2 p.m. on weekdays, so Evanston readers, take advantage of this double punch of charity and convenience.