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Jake’s Ice Cream to Serve Up Opportunities for Special Needs Adults

by Matt Delaney

Falls Church News-Press

From a sweet end for a first date to a treat after a youth league sports game — well, depending on the result (wink) — ice cream is beloved by all. But the shared adoration for this dairy dessert is only part of the draw of a new ice cream shop opening in Barcroft Plaza, which is also aiming to give a sense of fulfillment to its staff of adults with special needs.

With an opening slated for mid-July, at the very latest, Jake’s Ice Cream will be fully staffed by adults who live with cerebral palsy, Goldenhar syndrome, have chromosomal deletion and are on the autism spectrum, among other conditions. It’s the brainchild of optometrist Robin Rinearson, who recruited patients to be employees through the practice she’s run in Bailey’s Crossroads for nearly 45 years.

While the idea to open an ice cream shop came from her longtime financial advisor (and also a patient), she was inspired to give a boost to adults with special needs after witnessing how her nephew was laid off at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“My nephew, Jake, who is special needs, has been working for a company for eight years. And when Covid hit this particular company, they let all 18 of their special needs adults basically go, but they didn’t shut down the rest of the business,” Rinearson said of her nephew, who is the store’s namesake. “So I’m going to create a job for Jake and other special needs adults.”

It wasn’t an easy sell for her to make to potential landlords. Rinearson’s first attempt at nabbing a spot in Shirlington started out with her jumping through hoops — such as demonstrating her ability to run a business, verifying that she could pay the lease or being asked to earn her food manager’s certificate.

She tried to reason with the landlord’s representative, saying that they would be better served by having someone occupying the vacant storefront than no one. But when she laid out that she wanted to open an ice cream shop that’s staffed by people with special needs, it all but shot down the possibility of her getting that location.

“He could not get his head wrapped around the difference between special needs adults and derelict homeless people,” Rinearson said. “There was nothing that I could say or do to convince him that there is a world of difference between those two populations.”

Despite going over his head and speaking with the vice president of the leasing company, Rinearson still hit a dead end and squandered three months of her search on it. That was when she turned her sights to Barcroft Plaza in greater Falls Church where she received a much warmer reception to her plan and a landlord willing to bring her on.

Getting the lease proved to be one challenge. Now there comes hiring contractors and architects to complete the space and getting the right permits from Fairfax County’s zoning office, among other things, before the ideal opening date of early next month. One thing that hasn’t been a challenge has been training the employees themselves, with Rinearson dedicating every other weekend to getting them acquainted with their responsibilities (and proving the Shirlington landlord wrong in the process).

The staffers will be making milkshakes, ice cream cakes, pies, waffle cones, hot cocoa bombs, and cake pops. And yes, knowing how to make all 24 flavors of ice cream (including four vegan ones) is part of their job, which includes some classics as well as a house specialty with a vanilla base along with pralines and a maple swirl that Rinearson is trying to perfect.

Being a part of the community is also important to the ice cream shop owner. If a delivery is late and the shop needs something, she’ll send them over to the nearby Harris Teeter with a grocery list to check off. Their customized aprons have to be dry cleaned, so they’ll have to learn to go down to the Zips dry cleaning in the plaza and drop it off. Rinearson also plans on having the staff visit the police substation located in the Mason District Governmental Center to make connections with law enforcement (and give away some free ice cream coupons as well).

She is getting help from job coaches provided by the FairfaxFalls Church Community Services Board, but she makes sure there’s no drop in professionalism given her employees’ developmental hurdles.

For instance, she has her neighbors put in orders during her athome training sessions so the staff can get used to meeting the demands of customers. Those who still need to work on their skills are given Play-Doh to practice on at home so they know how to roll the cake in ball form. Even employees who have perceivably unworkable disabilities, such as one who’s missing part of his hand, are given tasks such as cleaning and labeling that they can efficiently do.

The effect that it’s having on the employees, as well as their family members who a good chunk often live with, is tremendous.

“[His mother] looked at me and goes, ‘I’ve never talked with anybody that was encouraging. Most people look at him and say “No,”’” Rinearson said, relaying the conversation she had with the parent of the employee who only has one good hand. She then swung back to speaking from her perspective. “He’s a sweet kid, he’ll fit in fine. We’re going to give him a shot at it.”

Rinearson expects to make plenty of mistakes, or “paying tuition” as she put it, during this venture. She emphasized that it’s not about producing a profit, but about having fun — which was her selling point to the store’s manager who has two decades of experience in the service industry (and, you guessed it, is a patient as well).

On each job application, Rinearson asked the applicants why they wanted to work for Jake’s. To a “T,” (and without any coordination) they said they wanted to because “Ice cream makes people happy.” By giving them an opportunity no one else would, Rinearson will soon realize that she’s the one making them happy.

JAKE’S ICE CREAM will employ special needs adults for a variety of positions, which means they will make ice cream, cake pops and waffle cones (top two photos). Jake’s will be open for busi-

ness this coming July. (Photos Courtesy Robin Rinearson)

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JUNE 17 – 23, 2021 | PAGE 9

Kensington Senior Living is proud to support

the Women’s Alzheimer’s Movement (WAM) and HFC as they host a FREE, virtual summit of top brain health experts and celebrities to learn ways to live a brain-healthy life in the fight against Alzheimer’s disease

Beyer Confirms Speaking at FCNP 30th Anniversary Fete

The office of U.S. Rep. Donald S. Beyer, Jr., who represents the 8th District of Virginia that includes the City of Falls Church, has confirmed that Rep. Beyer will deliver keynote remarks to the 30th Anniversary Celebration of the Falls Church News-Press on Thursday, July 29 at the Ireland’s Four Provinces restaurant, 100 W. Broad in F.C.

The event will run from 6 – 8 p.m. and all the friends and readers of the News-Press are heartily invited to attend. Tickets for $35 are available at fcnp. com/30thanniversaryticket.

A commemorative mug and published retrospective on the last 30 years by FCNP founder, owner and editor Nicholas F. Benton will be provided to all guests.

F.C. Sets Juneteenth Policies for June 18

The City of Falls Church government offices and services — including City Hall, the Mary Riley Styles Public Library, and Community Center — will be closed tomorrow, Friday, June 18, in observation of Juneteenth. The Library will also be closed for the holiday on Saturday, June 19, and the Community Center will be open with normal hours (8:30 a.m. – 11 p.m.).

Juneteenth recognizes the day (June 19, 1865) the last of the enslaved people in Galveston, Texas were told about the Emancipation Proclamation and that all Black people were free from the bondage of slavery. In modern times, Juneteenth has become a holiday to celebrate freedom, resiliency, and African American history and culture.

The City of Falls Church declared Juneteenth a holiday for the first time in 2020, following Virginia’s declaration that a state holiday be observed. In October 2020, legislation was passed unanimously in Richmond to officially declare it a permanent statewide holiday in Virginia.

Va. Tech Evening Classes To Resume in August

Virginia Tech’s highly-touted Evening MBA (Master in Business Administration) program will return to its Falls Church center for classes this August, it was announced this week.

“We know many students choose the Evening MBA because they value the inperson interactions they have with classmates and faculty members,” said Rebecca McGill, associate director of MBA recruiting at Virginia Tech. “We’re excited to return to in-person classes and provide those rich learning and networking opportunities that some find they’ve missed in the online environment.”

Virginia Tech’s current suite of programs includes the Evening MBA, Online MBA and the Ballston-based Executive MBA. All are part-time formats designed with working professionals in mind.

Drug Overdose Deaths Up During Pandemic

Mortality from all types of drug overdoses increased by a whopping 30 percent over a one-year period, Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), reported at the FDA’s Science Forum this week.

Data from the National Center for Health Statistics from October 2019 to October 2020 has shown that mortality from overdoses from all types of drugs increased 30 percent, from 70,669 deaths in October 2019 to 91,862 deaths in October 2020. “I think that number is very, very chilling,” Volkow said at the forum.

Among those overdose deaths in both years, more than half came from synthetic opiates — “the most notable presence is fentanyl,” she said. There was also a 46 percent increase in overdose deaths from other psychostimulants, mainly methamphetamine, and a 38 percent increase in deaths from cocaine overdoses.

Beyer Hails DOJ Change on Ghaisar Case

U.S. Rep. Don Beyer issued the following statement today after Attorney General Merrick Garland reportedly reversed the Department of Justice’s stance on cooperation with Virginia and Fairfax County prosecutors pursuing manslaughter charges against U.S. Park Police officers Alejandro Amaya and Lucas Vinyard for the 2017 killing of Bijan Ghaisar:

“Attorney General Merrick Garland made the right call by instructing the Justice Department to cooperate with prosecutors in the Ghaisar case.

“It is important that the Justice Department follow through and do all that is right and proper to ensure that justice is finally done. For years under the previous administration the Justice Department shrouded this case in an unacceptable level of opacity, stonewalling every attempt to establish the truth. Now we have reason to hope that a new era of accountability and transparency has arrived.”

Brain It On

Virtually on Thurs, June 24, 2021 • 3-4:30pm EDT

Hosted by Maria Shriver of WAM & Lauren Miller Rogen of HFC

Maria Shriver, WAM Lauren Miller Rogen, HFC

The Women’s Alzheimer’s Movement (WAM) and HFC, two of the nation’s leading Alzheimer’s and brain health-focused nonprot organizations, are joining forces to bring together brain health experts and celebrity advocates to equip you with ways to live a brain-healthy life! This free-to-attend, 90-minute, virtual summit is for anyone interested in learning about the connection between Alzheimer’s and brain health and how to sustain a journey of wellness. Join us for candid conversations, actionable steps and a few surprise guests. At The Kensington, one of the ways we uphold “our promise to love and care for your family as we do our own” is by supporting progressive initiatives toward wellness for seniors, such as BRAIN IT ON. We provide a full spectrum of assisted living services, and caring for residents with memory impairment is one of our strengths. We offer different program levels that address the challenges unique to each phase of loss so that we can improve our residents’ quality of life to the greatest extent possible. We include caregivers and family members in our efforts because after all, memory loss is a family affair. So please join us, along with devoted Alzheimer’s prevention specialists and advocates, for information, encouragement and tips you can put to good use right away. Please register online at www.thekensingtonfallschurch.com/events.

(703) 992-9868 | 700 West Broad Street | Falls Church, VA 22046 www.TheKensingtonFallsChurch.com