Beau Shell is a 13-year-old eighth grader, who’s better known as the Lil Ice Cream Dude around Athens. He started selling ice cream out of a mobile cart at the age of seven, and has just raised $21,000 dollars to open his own ice cream store on the eastside of Athens in April.
And now Shell has set his sights on raising $5,000 to send 100 local girls to see the movie, “A Wrinkle in Time,” because he wants to encourage them to pursue STEM fields.
“When you think about being a STEM girl, you know you could basically do pretty powerful things, like you could design a cure for cancer, or something like that, or you could like make the next iPhone and know what’s going to happen in everyone’s hand,” said Beau Shell. “Or you could make a futuristic ice cream or a cool world. So I really think it’s important to focus on that and taking the time to support girls.”
Vickie Shell, Shell’s mom and manager, said that the funds are still being collected for the March 11th event.
“The last day people can donate is March 10th. They can just go online to Beau’s GoFundMe and if they just search “A Wrinkle in Time with a 100 girls” they will find the campaign,” said Vickie Shell.
Beau Shell said that any excess funds from the donations will go right back to the non-profits who are partnering with him, including Books for Keeps.
A donor is also matching any funds that are donated for the event. The showing will be held on Sunday, March 11th at Cine Theatre at 3 p.m.
The link to the fundraiser is here: https://www.gofundme.com/beauplus100
Find out more about the Lil Ice Cream Dude here: https://www.lilicecreamdude.com/