Ice cream makes everything feel better.
That’s the mantra of the Engel family and Heather’s Homemade Ice Cream in Hopkinsville, which earlier this week returned 10 percent of its final two weeks of September sales to the family of Camille Atkinson.
All told, it came out to $1,914.60 for her family, and mother, Lauren, was nothing but grateful.
Atkinson was diagnosed with a form of childhood leukemia in August of 2020 and continues to admirably fight. As such, September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month — a pain the Engel’s unfortunately know firsthand. For years, Angel Engel and husband, Eric, have donated business monies to childhood cancer causes — after losing their 12-year-old daughter, Heather, to brain cancer in 2015.
This year, Angel said she and the business wanted to find someone to help that was a little closer to home.
Per the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, roughly 175,000 children ages 14 and younger are annually diagnosed with cancer worldwide, and cancer is the leading cause of death by disease of US children after infancy.
Better therapies, however, consistently help more than 80 percent of US childhood cancer patients become long-term survivors, and Angel notes childhood cancer is more common than some realize.
Angel says she and her business plan on annually continuing these targeted fundraisers and drives, particularly after this one proved so successful.
Heather’s Ice Cream is located at 2711 Fort Campbell Boulevard, and is open Monday-Saturday from 2-8 p.m.
Photo and audio compiled by John Godsey.
