Ben & Jerry's and Brownwood Scoop Shop ?

Posted on Thu, Jan. 06, 2005
Philanthropy never tasted so sweet

By Bud Kennedy
Star-Telegram Staff Writer

This isn't the best day to tell you about a new ice cream shop.

But a Ben & Jerry's is coming to Fort Worth, and there's more to the scoop.

The first local dip of Cherry Garcia will come in a swirl with needed dollars for one of the oldest women's charities in Texas.

When it opens -- probably in May -- the first local Ben & Jerry's Scoop Shop will be owned by the YWCA of Fort Worth and Tarrant County.

In the chapter's 99th year, the women of the local YWCA are teaming up with the two most famous men in the ice cream business.

Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, Vermont entrepreneurs, started giving away a few franchises 15 years ago to established charities that would promise to train teen-agers from poor neighborhoods for jobs and careers.

Two years ago, local YWCA Director Judi Bishop lay awake one night. She finally gave up on the idea of sleeping, thumbed through that day's Star-Telegram and flipped the radio to NPR.

She doesn't remember the show or the guests. But she remembers hearing about corporate social involvement and Ben & Jerry's PartnerShop franchises -- charity shops that pay no franchise fee or royalties.

A board officer, Kathy Jackson, helped oversee the franchise application and choose the location on Camp Bowie Boulevard in the Ridglea neighborhood next door to a busy Starbucks Coffee.

"Very few people really understand what the YWCA does," Jackson said. "I hope the shop brings us more attention."

What's even sweeter is that the YWCA expects to raise about $40,000 a year or more off ice cream sales. Every cone will help cover the agency's $3.2 million annual budget, funding job training and services for 1,400 young women and teen-agers.

Like other charities, the YWCA also operates a resale thrift shop, farther west on the same boulevard. Some charities also ask for old cars for resale, but the tax incentive for those gifts vanished Dec. 31.

Somehow, the idea of a charity ice cream shop sounds much more fun.

I can see the ads now.

Instead of "Write off the car -- not the kid," the YWCA's pitch could be "Write off the carbs -- not the kid."

Under a special Ben & Jerry's franchise arrangement, the shop will train teen-agers and young adults ages 16 to 21 from low-income families or state foster care. The young workers are taught not only how to top a banana split but also management skills and entrepreneurship.

The shop is the first charity Ben & Jerry's in Texas. The first for-profit area Scoop Shop opened a few weeks ago in Plano. Corporate officials -- the company is now owned by Unilever, although Ben and Jerry still promote the shops -- were away at an annual meeting Wednesday, so I couldn't ask them about the new Texas shops.

Bishop said the YWCA expects other investors to open Ben & Jerry's shops elsewhere in Fort Worth. The Camp Bowie location was chosen not only for the neighborhood but also for the city bus stop nearby, she said.

The YWCA had to raise $240,000 for shop construction and startup costs. The agency has been working on the project for two years and had announced it on the local YWCA Web site, www.ywcafortworth.org.

The shop is worth the cost, and the agency has planned carefully, Bishop said.

"We've been conservative about the money, because Ben & Jerry's is still pretty new to Texas," she said. "We really don't know how well we'll do here. But this will give us a tremendous amount of visibility and help a lot with fund raising."

If you think Ben & Jerry's is some mushy social-cause company led by do-gooders in Birkenstocks, think again, Jackson said.

"When we went up to Vermont to negotiate, we thought they had to convince us why we should run their shop," she said. "But they really grilled us about the YWCA. They have the image, but they treated this strictly as serious business."

Other Scoop Shop PartnerShops are run by a Chicago children's choir, youth agencies in San Francisco and Washington, D.C., and the Common Ground agency, which serves the homeless.

One of the most successful PartnerShops is on Chestnut Street in San Francisco, Bishop said. The same youth agency that owns that shop also sells all the Ben & Jerry's ice cream at Bay Area sports parks.

Cohen or Greenfield may come for the grand opening, Jackson said. The shop also plans local "celebrity dippers" and flavors.

The local YWCA board president, Constance Langston, already has a suggestion.

"Something like, say, Mayor Moncrief Marshmallow," she said.

If I know Mike Moncrief, he's not the marshmallow type. I suggested Mayor Moncrief Mocha.

But all of Fort Worth will definitely have a soft spot for the YWCA and Ben & Jerry's.
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Bud Kennedy's column appears uesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. (817) 390-7538 bud@budkennedy.com

source: http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/columnists/bud_kennedy/10579492.htm

BURLINGTON, VT—Ben & Jerry's, the Vermont-based ice-cream manufacturer known for its progressive social mission, held a press conference Monday to introduce a new flavor celebrating Academy Award winner Michael Moore.
"I'm really excited to announce the newest Ben & Jerry's ice-cream flavor," said Chrystie Heimert, Ben & Jerry's director of public relations. "In the spirit of Michael Moore's tasteful, playful calls for justice, we have created a tasteful, playful flavor: The Waffle Truth."
The Waffle Truth will honor the dynamic visionary by combining premium vanilla ice cream with strawberries, chocolate-covered waffle-cone bits, and a hint of cinnamon. The ice cream will be available in Ben & Jerry's Scoop Shops Friday, followed by a retail rollout in March.
"Making an ice-cream flavor that would do justice to such an important author and filmmaker wasn't easy," Heimert said. "We knew we'd be using ingredients bought at fair-market prices, but exactly what those ingredients would be was a source of a lot of good old-fashioned, honest, open debate."
Heimert said developers experimented with a host of possible ice-cream tributes to the best-selling author, including Stupid White Chocolate, Green Tea Nation, and Dude, Where's My Coconut?
Even after Ben & Jerry's decided what the new flavor would contain, developers struggled to perfect the name.
"We thought about calling it Cherry-heit 9-11, but we already have Cherry Garcia," Heimert said. "Fahrenheit 31.1 was the next choice, but we didn't think everyone would make the connection between the proper temperature for storing ice cream and the film that broke the theatrical documentary box-office record by seamlessly blending comedy with hard-hitting fact."
"We also considered a name reminiscent of our our popular Chubby Hubby flavor," Heimert said. "But in the end, we decided The Waffle Truth would be more respectful to Moore's achievements than a flavor called Hefty Lefty."
Ben & Jerry's has previously honored pop-culture icons Phish and Jerry Garcia, as well as the TV show Seinfeld. This is the first time that the company has honored a director.
Above: Sean Hannity blasts The Waffle Truth as "candy-coated, liberal fluff."
"Michael Moore's David-and-Goliath commentaries cut conservative bigwigs down to size,"Heimert said. "He follows the beat of his own drummer and works in his own unique way to improve the average American's life. Our choice was a natural—just like our ice cream: We use only fresh milk and cream bought from farmers that have pledged never to use recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone."
Added Heimert: "We believe that Michael will remain an important voice in American politics, and that we will find no need to discontinue The Waffle Truth, as we did Wavy Gravy, Doonesberry Sorbet, and Dilbert's World Totally Nuts."
The Emmy Award winner made a surprise appearance at the Ben & Jerry's Scoop Shop in Times Square to support the product.
"I'm honored Ben & Jerry's decided to dedicate an ice cream to me," Moore told the excited crowd. "It's a fantastic company with a great track record of treating their employees fairly and using only ethically produced ingredients."
"Plus, a lifetime supply of ice cream sounds pretty good," Moore added, patting his stomach with a self-deprecating laugh.
According to Ben & Jerry's press materials, The Waffle Truth rollout will include a nationwide tour by the company's promotional ice-cream wagon. The tour will begin its journey in Flint, MI and continue south to distribute free pints of ice cream in 14 Rust Belt cities suffering from post-industrial decline.
Other Ben & Jerry's flavors slated for introduction in 2005 are Praline Kael, Noam ChompChompsky Crunch, Ché Guava, and Nelson Vanilla, an anti-apartheid flavor that consists of a dark-chocolate sorbet swirled in an equal amount of vanilla ice cream.

source: http://onion.com/news/index.php?issue=4044&n=1