FRESNO, Calif. (FOX26) \u2014 A branded ice cream truck launched by Lee\u2019s Air, Plumbing & Heating is quickly becoming a summer staple across the Valley, with the locally owned Fresno company nearing 10,000 free ice creams served since the program began in mid-June.<\/p>\n
The company said the truck has made 101 stops across the Valley and is \u201cclosing in on 10,000 free ice creams served, all at no cost to the community.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lee\u2019s Air said it is on pace to give away its 10,000th free ice cream in August, about two months after launching the truck.<\/p>\n
Requests have continued to build from neighborhoods, schools, churches, youth sports leagues, summer camps and senior centers, with bookings already scheduled through September.<\/p>\n
The company said its largest event yet is planned for this weekend, with up to 2,000 attendees expected.<\/p>\n
In July alone, the truck completed 101 stops and served an estimated more than 9,500 people, according to the company.<\/p>\n
Stops included elementary schools on their last days of summer session, youth football camps, workplace appreciation events and neighborhood visits across Fresno, Clovis, Sanger and surrounding communities.<\/p>\n
Lee\u2019s Air said the program is funded entirely by the company, with \u201cno corporate sponsors, no strings attached, and no sales pitch. Just free ice cream.\u201d The effort is described as an extension of the company\u2019s mission: \u201cServe People. Our customers, our coworkers and our community. And have fun doing it!\u201d<\/p>\n
The company said demand has exceeded expectations, prompting multiple schedule expansions as requests continue to come in faster than the truck can reach them heading into August.<\/p>\n
The July schedule included 10 categories of stops, including 25 school and summer camp visits, 18 workplace appreciation events, 14 nonprofit and community organization visits, seven sports and recreation events, and 10 birthday parties for local families.<\/p>\n
Highlights included the Xavier Worthy Dream B1G Football Camp with 575-plus attendees, Fresno Mission, and Camp Jeevan, a Sikh summer camp serving 200 people.<\/p>\n
Community members can request a free ice cream truck visit at leesicecreamtruck.com. The company said schools, nonprofits, churches, youth sports programs and neighborhood groups are prioritized, but anyone can submit a request at no cost and with no obligation. Lee\u2019s Air also said it has \u201ca few new ideas in store for the coming weeks to keep the momentum going.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FRESNO, Calif. (FOX26) \u2014 A branded ice cream truck launched by Lee\u2019s Air, Plumbing & Heating is quickly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":425079,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":["post-425078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=425078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/425079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=425078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=425078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=425078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}