The Adult Enrichment Centers’ (AEC) Daily Scoops is a food truck serving custom ice cream and cone flavors that offers competitive wages to a diverse employee base, specifically differently-abled people.
The AEC, which owns and operates the Daily Scoops as an LLC, offers programs to the elderly and those with different abilities “that promote self-advocacy and independence,” according to its website. The Daily Scoops food truck was created in June in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced many of the AEC programs to stop temporarily.
“During the pandemic, we were closed down for parts, and then we reopened. But obviously, we still aren’t serving at capacity,” said Samantha Kriegshauser, the CEO of AEC. “We have always been looking for kind of a micro-enterprise that our adults of different abilities could participate in.
“And then during the pandemic, we actually came across an ice cream truck, and we decided to go ahead and buy it and begin that micro-enterprise, once again in the middle of a pandemic.”
Employees of all types, those differently-abled and those not, work at the Daily Scoops. While other similar enterprises, such as Bitty & Beau’s Coffee, hire only differently-abled employees, Kriegshauser said this is not true inclusion.
“They [Bitty & Beau’s Coffee] have been able to do what no one else has been able to do, which is to bring that national attention to the fact that folks with different abilities have mad skills,” Kriegshauser said. “They want to do great things, they want to be employed, and they make great employees.
“However, for us, that kind of stops just short of being inclusive. By that, I mean they only employ people of different abilities, and we are an inclusive workforce putting together people of all abilities.”
The AEC Daily Scoops ice cream truck will be parked at Sub Station II on Wednesdays from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m.
Charlie Ruffalo, owner of the Sub Station II on Cherry Road, said he was happy to help the AEC out.
“I was aware of what they do with the Adult Enrichment Center, and I know the lady who started it, Samantha Kriegshauser, and I just thought it would be a great thing for the students [of Winthrop] and for the public in general, and good exposure for them. Since it’s a non-profit charity organization, I thought it would be just a great fit for the two of us to work together,” Ruffalo said.
Currently, the Daily Scoops has a custom “Taste of Summer” flavor, a banana pudding ice cream with mini chocolate chips, which is said to taste like a chocolate frozen banana.
Their most famous creation, however, is their Cone Frites, which has a waffle cone crunch but tastes like french fries. In addition, in the winter, when ice cream sales traditionally fall, Daily Scoops is, according to Kriegshauser, looking into serving gourmet hot chocolate and affogato, an Italian dessert where hot espresso is put over vanilla ice cream.
While the truck does not currently turn a profit, the benefits, both to the organization and the community as a whole, are worth it to the AEC. Through promotion, marketing and word–of–mouth, Kriegshauser wants to increase sales to reinvest the profit back into the AEC, sustaining their work.
“In Rock Hill, we’re very blessed to have a community that really embraces inclusion. And diversity, for a lot of folks, means race or gender or religion,” Kriegshauser said. “But real diversity embraces all aspects of abilities and brings people together.
“So, building an inclusive community in the York County area is embracing all abilities all together, which includes both our senior folks and our people of different abilities.”
