An ice cream challenge with a life-saving impact

The arrival of summer in Norfolk means two things: The Royal Norfolk Show and ice cream.

Aiming to inspire the business leaders of tomorrow, social impact business, Nelsonspirit, invited schools to combine the two and compete against each other by selling ice creams at this year’s county show, with profits supporting local charities. There were four schools who took part; Norwich High School for Girls, Norwich School, Langley School and Ormiston Academy.

We were thrilled to hear that Stevie, Elitsa, Izzy, Betsy and Miranda, all age 17 from Norwich High School for Girls, had chosen to support East Anglian Air Ambulance. We caught up with Elitsa, Stevie, Izzy and Jane Wells, Head of Business and Economics, the week after the Royal Norfolk Show to hear all about it!

How did the challenge come about?

[Jane] It was through Nigel Cushion and his social impact business, Nelsonspirit. It was part of a programme, alongside local ice cream business, Ronaldo Ices, to inspire young business leaders. They had previously done a similar challenge before the pandemic. The 2024 challenge was the first one since then and we were involved on the first day of the Norfolk Show, competing against Norwich School.

How did it build your business skills?

[Jane] It champions leadership skills by encouraging students to consider marketing, pricing strategies and sales. It’s a great opportunity for students to gain experience to add to their CVs. Three of the five students on the Norwich High School for Girls team are business students, so the challenge complemented their Business A-Level.

What inspired you to support East Anglian Air Ambulance?

[Stevie] We wanted to support a different, local charity so that was one of the main reasons. Because it was the Royal Norfolk Show, we remembered the previous royal connection with EAAA too.

[Izzy] We also knew that EAAA needs donations because the charity doesn’t receive regular government funding.

How did you get started and bring everything together?

[Elitsa] We attended the launch meeting at Birketts. Nigel did an introduction to Ronaldo’s and the challenge. We then did some market research with a survey at school to help us pick out what would be the most popular flavours. We ended up choosing quite a few, including chocolate, strawberry, vanilla, fudge brownie, salted caramel, raspberry sorbet and mint choc chip.

On the day of the show, it was quite busy; there were bursts of people and when they saw others in the queue, it encouraged them to join too. At quieter times, we could also talk more to people about the challenge and explain that we were raising money for EAAA.

[Jane] It was also a hot day, so it was perfect for selling ice cream!

[Stevie] We also talked to the other stalls to invite them to buy from us, and we also asked if people wanted to make an additional donation to EAAA – lots of them did, especially towards the end of the day, by rounding up the cost.

[Izzy] All the profits were donated to charity.

How much money did you raise in aid of EAAA?

[Jane] All the gross profit of £494 was donated to East Anglian Air Ambulance.

How do you feel knowing that your efforts will help to save local lives?

[Stevie] Knowing that we’ve done something to help is a great feeling.

[Izzy] It’s really good to know and it was a great experience.

[Elitsa] We were really motivated too because it was a competition!

[Jane] The team really stepped out of their comfort zone to take part in a challenge of this kind for the first time. They did really well and were great ambassadors for Nelsonspirit, Ronaldo Ices and East Anglian Air Ambulance.

A huge thank you to Stevie, Izzy, Elitsa, Betsy and Miranda for their life-saving support for East Anglian Air Ambulance.