Saturday was ice cream day at Village Temple, the gourmet soup kitchen on East 12th Street where I spend my Saturday afternoons. Stephanie Ching and Jim Wong, from New York Cares, treated 210 homeless and low income clients to a special dessert of homemade ice cream from Alphabet Scoop, New York’s most nurturing ice cream store.
Alphabet Scoop was created by Carol Vedral, the executive director of Farther Heart’s Ministry as part of a mentoring and outreach program targeting at risk kids from the Alphabet City neighborhood of Manhattan. Open from April through December, Alphabet Scoops offers kids 14 and older the chance to learn job skills. Each employee starts off with a training class, where he learns how to make all 16 varieties of the product from scratch. A mentor is assigned to each teenager for support, encouragement and friendship. Working after school and on weekends helps these kids to learn responsibility and accountability while earning a paycheck.
Profits form Alphabet Scoop help to support other Father’s Heart Ministry outreach programs, such as their soup kitchen and after school program.
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August 29th, 2007 at 10:00 am
That is so cool! (pardon the bad pun), how did it go? Did you have enough ice cream, tell us more 🙂
September 3rd, 2007 at 1:29 am
Actually, we had enough for everyone to have seconds. We run Village Temple, as if its a resturant, because we want our clients to feel special. I know almost all of them by name. And I try to keep the conversations light.
The homeless are very appreciative of small things like desserts. Next week I’m baking a few red velvet cakes to help cure the end of summer blues.