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Date: 10/28/2020
ENFIELD/LONGMEADOW – Mary Neumeister has been in the ice cream truck business for nearly 20 years. She has watched her regular customers in northern Connecticut and southern Massachusetts grow up over the years and bring their own children to buy summer treats when they hear the ice cream truck coming.
Recently, after a string of bad luck, Neumeister almost lost her livelihood when someone broke into the vehicle in which she delivers ice cream. Luckily, the community stepped in to keep her on the road.
A few years after moving to the area from greater Philadelphia, Neumeister drove by an ice cream truck for sale with a sign that read “Be your own boss.” The single mother of three decided to do just that and began Nanas Ice Cream, where the motto is: “You’re always a kid at the ice cream truck.”
Neumeister, who works at a Dunkin in East Windsor, CT., during the cold months, brings Nanas Ice Cream to towns in Connecticut including Enfield, Somers, Stafford Springs, and Rockville, and Longmeadow and East Longmeadow in Massachusetts.
The primary vehicle that Neumeister uses to sell Nanas Ice Cream is a 1973 Good Humor brand ice cream truck. She uses it to drive around neighborhoods selling ice cream the old-fashioned way.
“Kids love the bell,” Neumeister said. She also has a newer van that is used at events, such as carnivals, graduations, school field days and fireworks.
Unfortunately, the pandemic meant that most of the events at which she would normally set up her business were canceled. Without those events, Neumeister said, she was left with the income from driving around neighborhoods and the few hours at her second job.
In July, when the Good Humor truck needed a new motor, Neumeister put the van on the road and began delivering from that vehicle while she saved up to repair the truck. She said it was tough to make ends meet and practically impossible to save for the truck’s new motor.
Then disaster struck. On Oct. 17, Neumeister received a call from the location where she stored and plugged in her ice cream van. Several of the vehicles parked there, including hers, had been broken into. The ice-cream van had been vandalized and someone had removed the catalytic converter, two feet of exhaust piping and stolen $1,800 worth of ice cream.
“It just crushed me,” Neumeister said. She spoke about the good memories she has made delivering ice cream everywhere from a “Zombie Walk” fundraiser to a bachelorette party, and all the people she has met over the years.
Neumeister was concerned that her regular customers would be expecting her to come to their neighborhood, so she posted a message on community forums for the towns she serves. In the post she let people know what had happened. She said that her season, which normally runs until the end of October, would be cut short and that she may be closed permanently.
Neumeister said her daughter urged her to start an online fundraiser, but she was reluctant.
“People are really hurting,” Neumeister said. “I lost a number of customers in Enfield to the virus. How can you ask people to contribute to an ice cream truck when you don’t know if people are going to live or die?”
But when friends of Neumeister heard about her trouble they turned to the many Nanas Ice Cream customers online for help. Jennifer Owens-White, owner of Dragonfly Nutrition and Energy, began a Facebook fundraiser with a goal of $5,000. In just eight days, 132 people raised $5,364. Another friend, Melissa Buchanan,, began a gofundme.com campaign which has raised $750 of its $4,000 goal.
“I just can’t believe people are responding like that,” Neumeister told Reminder Publishing. It’s nice that people care. I have some amazing customers and I’ve made some amazing friends.” Other people have pitched in as well. A family visited her at her job in East Windsor and gave her a check to put toward her repairs. She said that she has realized that she’s had an impact on her customers.
The funds raised, along with some insurance money from the van, should be enough to put the new motor in the truck, she said.
“Saturday, I was crying hard tears of hurt and pain,” Neumeister said. Now, “I’m crying tears of gratefulness and happiness. I can still do what I love to do.”