Sweet: Hyde Park residents donate so kids getting Covid-19 shots can get some ice cream to soothe the pain

In less than 24 hours, with just a couple of posts in the Hyde Park neighborhood Facebook group, Marc Lavine raised more than $1,000 to pay for a free ice-cream cone with a topping for any kid under 12 who shows up at Ron's Gourmet Ice Cream and 20th Century Bowling Bowling on Hyde Park Avenue with proof of vaccination.

Now he's aiming higher:

Because people stepped up with more than a thousand dollars in just 24 hours, while we were getting the word out quietly, surely we can at least double that as we do more to publicize this and as recipients start generating attention (please use #conesagainstcovid so we can keep track). It also seems striking that for every $1000 raised, 200 children will receive a sweet reward but the number of donors is so much smaller than the recipient pool. I think it would be great to see a push next week to encourage high numbers of people to make small donations of just $5. This all leads me to think that we should be able to raise at least $3000 but hopefully much more. There are several thousand qualifying children who live near Ron's and the more we incentivize to get vaccinated the better.

There's a GoFundMe page, or you can drop donations for the cones against Covid at Ron's, 1231 Hyde Park Ave.