Earn 100% Profit for Your Cause with a Darling’s Ice Cream for a Cause Stop!
Our truck attends events and offers free, pre-packaged ice cream in exchange for voluntary donations to help raise money for causes in our community. We founded this program, called Darling’s Ice Cream for a Cause, in 2012.
We’re proud to have helped raise over $490,000 for thousands of great charities and causes in Maine.
This is a unique and fun way to fundraise, and we travel to most areas in Maine to help raise money for great causes of all sizes.
Looking for information on how to use the truck to raise money for your school? Visit How Does It Work for Schools?
Why consider fundraising with the Darling’s Ice Cream for a Cause truck?
- It’s easy, fun, and free to your cause!
- No selling involved
- Free materials and promotion assistance
- 100% of all donations collected go back to your cause!
How does it work?
The Darling’s Ice Cream for a Cause truck offers free ice cream in exchange for voluntary donations to help raise money for charities and causes in our communities. If you have a cause or charity, no matter how large or small, we want to help you raise money!
- You request a stop for an event at your cause by filling out the Request a Stop form.
- We will be scheduling on a rolling basis this year, so expect to hear from us about six weeks prior to your event! If we’re available, we schedule your stop and confirm our availability. We will let you know if we are unable to attend, so you’ll hear from us either way!
- We’ll help you promote the event to make it a success, so you can raise the most money possible. We provide free resources and marketing materials to help you promote it, and will also help to promote your stop.
- At the event, one of our ice cream ambassadors will bring the ice cream truck to your stop, and hand out free ice cream in exchange for voluntary donations.
- We mail you a check for 100% of the proceeds within 2-3 weeks after your event.
How much can we raise?
An average two-hour stop earns between $100-$300, although some events earn much more. This varies depending on the event, location, and weather. The more you help spread the word about the event, the more you can earn! We help with promotion, and can give you lots of ideas on how to get the word out, but the more people that you can have stop and get an ice cream during your stop, the more money you will raise!
What types of events do you attend?
We’ve found that large events with lots of people work best to help maximize donations! Some events that would be a good fit for our truck:
- Open houses
- Sporting events and games
- Concerts
- Touch-A-Truck events
- Parades
- Hosted stops at business locations
- Family fun days
- Car shows
- Fairs and festivals
- Holiday parties and gatherings
- Awareness walks, 5Ks and “Fun Runs”
- … and many more!
How much does it cost?
There is no cost to your cause. Darling’s donates the ice cream, and 100% of all collected donations go back to your cause.
Free ice cream – what’s the catch?
There isn’t one. We created this truck with the idea of creating smiles, sharing some sweet treats, and helping causes in the communities that we work and live in.
How can I schedule my event?
We are currently preparing for next season. The ice cream truck will return for our 2023 season beginning April 1st and run through October 31st. At this time, we are planning to start accepting event requests in mid-February or early March. Once we start accepting event requests you can visit our Request a Stop form to submit your event.
We typically schedule in two-hour blocks so that we can attend as many events and help as many great causes as possible. To give everyone’s events and causes equal consideration, we are booking the events closer to their requested date instead of as they come in. This has allowed us to streamline our driver scheduling and assess the logistics for each day’s events better, which in turn lets us attend as many events and help as many causes as possible.
