Jo Jo’s Ice Cream Raises Thousands for Racquet Club Fire Victims

Just a few weeks after the tragic Racquet Club fire in Levittown, a local ice cream parlor set out to fund-raise for the victims that lost everything.

Read LevittownNow.com’s full coverage of the Racquet Club fire

The event which was the result of weeks of planning and numerous committee meetings, rang in its hard work this past Saturday to amazing reviews.

Jo Jo’s, a famous ice cream eatery on New Falls Road in Fairless Hills is known for their weekly fundraisers and decided to go all out for this event. With face painting, a balloon artist, a moon bounce, numerous children’s characters, a DJ and a whopping 125 donated items for a raffle, community members were able to take pride in their overwhelming volunteer spirit.

Deb Kalbach, the owner of Jo Jo’s for the past 24 years knew immediately after the Racquet Club fire which struck this past July, that she had to become involved.

“When I first heard about the fire and realized it had depleted much of the American Red Cross’ money, I knew we had to have a fundraiser,” she said. “We had a meeting about it and the amount of people that showed up and were interested was amazing.”

Ken Dickerson, a member of the American Red Cross local chapter was truly astonished at the work that had been accomplished and the ending result. “It has been a pretty steady day for a nine hour event,” he said with a smile across his face. “There has been such a good flow of people, it is amazing the amount of hard work that went into this event and obtaining the prizes. It is so amazing all these people have come out to support.”

Numerous local businesses had joined the fundraising efforts and donated prizes, including Hammertime Construction, who donated a large flat screen television to be raffled off. Jacqui Redner, the Pennsbury School Board member who helped organize the event which honored the young heroes involved in the fire, was the lucky winner.

Read the original LevittownNow.com story, Young Racquet Club Residents Honored for Extreme Heroism

Congressman Mike Fitzpatrick also showed his support for the event, passing off $100 gift cards for each of the fire victims. (The gift cards had been anonymously donated and given to him.)

In total, Jo Jo’s (in addition to donating 20% of ice cream and water ice sales) was able to donate $5110.00 dollars to help the victims of the fire which ripped apart the B building of Racquet Club just a month ago.