Women's History Month
It’s Women’s History Month! A month where we honor the contributions of women from history and women making history today! To honor Women’s History Month this year we did something special. We created seasonal flavors inspired by women that inspire us, and we had so much fun doing it! We had the honor and pleasure of working with four amazing inspirational women to create flavors that reflect them and their work. Read on to learn about our March flavors and the women behind them!
Patty Murray
Patty Murray is a U.S. Senator from Washington State, she was Washington’s first female senator and has served in the Senate since 1992! She is currently the third most senior democratic Senator. She has worked tirelessly defending women’s rights and supporting legislation to help women and families. She has fought for years and continues to fight for equal pay for women and for family-friendly workplace policies and policies like affordable childcare to help parents succeed. As soon as we learned that our favorite Senator loved bittersweet chocolate and salted caramel, we got to work making the most rich, chocolatey ice cream swirled with a super salty, thick caramel ribbon!
Saru Jayaraman
Saru Jayaraman is the Co-Founder and President of the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROC United). ROC United’s mission is to improve wages and working conditions of the nation’s restaurant workforce. They advocate for higher minimum wages and for better benefits and working conditions for restaurant workers everywhere. Saru and her co-founder Fekkak Mamdouh initially founded ROC United to provide support for displaced restaurant workers after the World Trade Center tragedy and since then have created wide-reaching policy change for restaurant workers all over the country - winning state-wide minimum wage increases, helping with jobs training so that restaurant workers can advance in the industry and encouraging restaurant owners to be socially responsible. One of Saru’s favorite childhood flavors was mint chocolate chip, so for her flavor we made a delicious fresh mint ice cream swirled with mint-chocolate hardshell – we’re calling it Mintimum Chip!
Makini Howell
Makini Howell is one of our favorite Seattle chefs and restaurant owners. She owns four restaurants in the area, Plum Bistro, Sugar Plum, Pantry and Chopped! All of her restaurants are vegan and use delicious, fresh plant-based ingredients. Makini is not only an amazing restauranteur, she is also an advocate for worker’s rights and small business rights and has done amazing work for our city and state. Her work with Main Street Alliance – a voice for small businesses on policy issues has helped changed the landscape for small businesses in Seattle. She helped in the fight to get paid sick and safe time for workers and to raise the minimum wage. Her work with the Economic Opportunity Institute helped pass paid family leave state-wide. Because Makini is vegan and focuses on vegan food, we knew we wanted her as the inspiration for our vegan flavor. When we began talking about this project, Makini told us the story of how her mom used to make her a lemon meringue pie for her birthday each year. We loved this and made a delicious Vegan Lemon Meringue Pie flavor using coconut milk. To create a pie-like experience we folded in freshly made vegan meringue and graham cracker crust and added lots of lemon juice and zest.
Suzi Pengilly
Suzi Pengilly is our CEO and Founder Molly Moon's mom! For so many of us, our mom is the first woman who inspired us – and in Molly’s case her mom is no exception. In the beginning of her company Molly had Balsamic Strawberry on the menu. It was inspired by a salad her mom used to make, a salad she actually loved as a child! It had fresh strawberries and a delicious tart balsamic dressing! It was Suzi's favorite flavor! It left our Always menu a couple of years ago, but we brought our beloved old favorite back for her this month! It's made with our classic strawberry ice cream and swirled with a sharp and earthy homemade balsamic reduction.
We're giving back to get women elected!
Women have been making history in recent years by running for and being elected to office. Last year a record number of women not only ran in local and state elections, but they won them! There are now 102 women in the U.S. House of Representatives and 23 women in the U.S. Senate – more than ever before! There are also a record number of women of color in Congress this year.
When women serve in office women have a voice, they can vote and pass laws to promote women, promote equal pay, promote policies that make it easier for women to succeed and for families to be supported.
As amazing as it is that we have so many more women in Congress than we’ve had in the past, women still only make up 24% of Congress, which means there is much more work to do!
This month we are donating 10% of sales from our seasonal Women’s History Month flavors to nonprofits that help women run for office and help women candidates get elected to office. We’re giving to Higher Heights, Emerge Washington, She Should Run, Get Her Elected and Emily’s List. Read on below to learn more about each of these amazing organizations.
Meet the women who inspired our flavors this month! And celebrate women making history!
On Monday March 18th we’re partnering with The Riveter to host an event for women about how women are making history – and how we can make history this year! It will be hosted by our Founder and CEO Molly Moon Neitzel and the Founder and CEO of The Riveter Amy Nelson.
All of the women that inspired our flavors will be there to talk about what they’re working on, how women are making history in their fields, and what we can do to support them.
And, of course, we’ll be giving out scoops of all of our Women’s History Flavors!