The Office of Student Life is planning an event this Friday that will bring Blue Bell ice cream back to the university’s campus for the first time since April.
The popular brand of ice cream was carried in the Bean before the company was linked to 10 illnesses, including three deaths at the hands of listeria monocytogenes, a type of bacteria that was found in two different Blue Bell plants. This caused the company to pull all products off the shelf for possible contamination. Fellow ice cream brand Blue Bunny has been carried in the Bean since.
With Blue Bell products not making it to Taylor County until the middle of next month, Office of Student Life worker Amy Sloan said that they saw an opening to do something good for the students, especially at this time late in the semester, and they jumped on it.
“We just wanted to treat the ACU students to some free Blue Bell going into the holidays and finals,” said Sloan, senior advertising/public relations major from Houston.
Such a large task wasn’t easy. Lactose intolerant Courtney Tee, junior sociology major from Houston, said the only way to obtain the ice cream for the event was to take massive coolers filled with dry ice to the Dallas area, which received Blue Bell products on Nov. 2 as part of their phase two release. Buying 30 half-gallons of ice cream in a place that didn’t have the product just two weeks earlier is no easy venture.
“People were staring a lot when I was pushing that cart full of ice cream. I think someone snapchatted [a picture of] me,” Tee said. “The cashiers thought I was some sort of hoarder at first, but when I explained I was bringing it back to Blue Bell-less college kids, they got on board.”
With only certain flavors including vanilla, dutch chocolate and cookies ‘n cream offered right now in stores, only a finite amount of ice cream available for the thousands of ACU students that may want a scoop. Student Life recognizes the appeal of their product and is doing their best to make sure that everybody can get a little before they run out.
“We aren’t advertising too much because we know we will get a mob no matter what,” Tee said.
The event will be in the Campus Center at noon Friday and is first-come, first-serve, but it is limited to one scoop per person due to quantity constraints.
