Leaves are changing color, temperatures are dropping and birds are heading south, but today, Oct. 3, at RBHS there was still time for summer treats.
Dippin’ Dots, the popular confection manufacturer, set up a promotional booth outside the main entrance on an unusually warm and sunny October day.
Athletics Director Jennifer Mast said the booth is the brainchild of former RBHS parent Eric Polmquist, who wanted to give back to the school. The first Dippin’ Dots promotion was last spring, and Mast said it raised more than $1,800 for RBHS.
“We did the one in the spring and it went really well,” Mast said, ” He said, ‘Were we interested in doing one in the fall,’ and we said sure, contact us, so he contacted us and said, ‘Hey, how about next week,’ and we said, ‘The weather looks good. Let’s do it.’”
Sophomore Kyle Pellington agreed. He said the ability to buy Dippin’ Dots at RBHS made it easy for him and his friends to appreciate the notoriously hard-to-find ice cream and that the closeness of the booth was extremely convenient.
“I think it’s pretty cool how they’re actually bringing Dippin’ Dots here for us to buy, and it’s actually cheaper,” Pellington said. “We don’t have to go somewhere else. We can actually get it here.”
Polmquist, who has been working for Dippin’ Dots for about 12 years, said the promotion was a success and Dippin’ Dots would come to RBHS about once a semester to serve students the unique ice cream, the most popular flavors of which, he said, were cookies and cream and banana split.
“It’s been pretty popular … we’re really busy over lunch hour and then between one and two,” Polmquist said. “There’s a few kids who’ve been more than once.”
The money raised from the promotion goes to a fund for teacher recognition, Mast said. The promotion might not do as well as last year, she said, because of its shorter duration, but she expects plenty to come from Dippin’ Dots.
“I expect less this year because last year was a two-day thing, and this year it’s only one day,” Mast said. “I don’t know if we got the same percentage we got in the spring because it is his promotion not the companies’ promotion, but it’s kind of a bonus deal for us. He came to us, it worked out. It’s kind of a win-win.”
Adam Schoelz
With additional reporting by Jacqueline LeBlanc and Maddie Magruder