Kids on this route all scream for (free) ice cream
Most of the kids who see Andrew Hilary’s ice cream truck coming have giant smiles on their faces. Who doesn’t love a frozen treat on a hot summer day?
Yet every so often, the Mount Washington man sees a youngster who doesn’t have enough money to buy one of the cool treats advertised on the side of his white Vandura 2500 van. When he can, Mr. Hilary will dole out a treat for free. But seeing someone who can’t afford ice cream — especially now, with rising inflation and out-of-control gas prices — also got him thinking: Why not crowdsource so the kids on his route could enjoy free ice cream?
As he recounted last Thursday, while chatting by his truck in Riverview Park on the North Side: “People
like doing nice things for people on the internet.”
He just didn’t realize how nice or how fast people would respond when he
reached out on social media on June 20.
“How would yinz feel about me crowdfunding a free ice cream day?” Mr.
Hilary asked on Twitter. “I do a low-income neighborhood (North Side of Pittsburgh). On Thursday, if I could raise like $750, that would cover the cost of giving every kid on my route free ice cream. Thoughts?”
Within 90 minutes, he had raised nearly $900. So many people Venmo’d him, in fact, that he ended up entreating his followers — most of them complete strangers — “stop sending me money now though lol,” promising to do another fundraiser in the future.
Mr. Hilary held his “Free Ice Cream Day” Thursday on his North Side route. He started around 3 p.m. with an ice cream-packed freezer, and tweeted soon after: “Drove past a field where kids were having football practice. Half a case of spongebob: GONE.
By the time he wrapped up a few hours later, over 400 people had enjoyed about $ 1,600 worth of free ice cream throughout the North Side. Happy recipients included more than a dozen teens who arrived at his truck, still wet and in flipflops after swimming at Riverview Park’s pool just down the hill.
“I get asked all the time for free stuff,” Mr. Hilary explained a smile, “so it feels really good that at least for one day, kids can come up and get whatever they want.”
Like a lot of people, he grew up sweet on ice cream trucks, though as a kid in Beechview he only rarely got to actually patronize one. “My dad would be like, ‘We’ve got the same thing in the freezer,’” he recalls with a laugh.
Running one is a relatively new venture for the 34year-old, who before the pandemic worked in landscaping. When the unemployment checks stopped, he found himself looking for a job in summer 2020. A friend of a friend knew someone who was giving up his ice cream truck route in the city. He figured why not?
Mr. Hilary ended up liking the side gig so much — “No one could leave the house, so parents were very happy to see me” — that before long he was doing four routes on a part-time basis. He also hosts a leftist comedy podcast full of “gallows humor” called “The Worst Week Yet.”
“It’s just kind of wholesome,” he said, “and honestly, it’s really fun.”
On a good day, Mr. Hilary said he can dole out upward of 200 BombPops, Snow Cones and other frozen goodies on his routes through
Shaler, Highland Park, Brookline and the North Side. The most sought-after treat, thanks to a viral video on TikTok, is the fruit punch- and cotton candy-flavored SpongeBob Squarepants ice cream bar.
This isn’t Mr. Hilary’s first brush with celebrity. Last year, a little girl in Shadeland asked if she could pay for a ice cream with a plastic, glow-inthe-dark rock because she didn’t have any money. A picture he posted ended up on the front page of Reddit, and between all the Facebook and Instagram pages that shared it, he counted more than 1 million
“likes.”
On a hot day, Mr. Hilary admits sitting behind the wheel of a 37-year-old un-airconditioned ice cream truck can feel like the hottest place on earth, especially since he can’t eat any of his products. (He’s lactose intolerant.)
“It’s like a million degrees in here,” he quipped.
But for one day, at least, it also was the happiest place on the planet.
“When you do something good, and people like it, it’s rewarding,” he said.