Put Together An Old-Fashioned Ice Cream Social

As a child I remember attending old-fashioned Ice Cream Socials. They were a fun time to break up the summer, get back together with friends I hadn't seen since school let out for summer vacation, and it was a great family time as well. You don't see very many of these anymore, but that doesn't mean they can still be fun and not to hard to put together.

Usually ice cream socials were put together by a community or church in order to raise money. They do make great charity events. Today people are more inclined to put together a walk or run. There is nothing wrong with incorporating these into your social, but you can turn it up a notch.

If you ever saw the old Disney movie "Pollyanna" you would see where I am going with this. An ice cream social had carnival games, kissing booths, barbershop quartets and of course - ice cream. Nowadays there could be the old-fashioned carnival-type games like putting a ring on a bottle, balloon darts, fishing in a kiddie pool for kids, and the adults can sit around the bandstand to listen to local musical and singing groups, or even karaoke.

Purchase disposable dishes and plastic spoons, have several topping available (chocolate and caramel syrup, sprinkles, nuts, cookie crumbs, chocolate chips, etc.), and put an ice cream scoop in a pail of water for easier scooping. The old-fashioned socials had homemade ice cream in different flavors, but if you don't want to take the time or expense to make your own buckets of ice cream are easy to purchase. Make sure you have a good freezer to keep the ice cream from melting and only take one bucket out at a time (or use an old-fashioned ice cream metal ice cream bucket (shown) to keep the ice cream cold. You can also sell cupcakes in addition (Display them on a nice cupcake stand so they will be visually appealing as well - and hard to resist!)

Allow area charities to set up booths for fundraising, and request their booths be entertaining as well. People tend to spend more money on games than just tokens or donations. One item I highly recommend that would be useful and bring in money is to sell personalized metal water bottles (put the event name and date, the charity, or whatever you like).

Overall, an ice cream social is a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon in the summer for the entire family!