DAD OF 10 BOUGHT AN ICE CREAM TRUCK TO GIVE HIS KIDS JOBS

Joel Wegener, a father of 10 from Loveland, Ohio, bought a used ice cream truck and started a business called Special Neat Treats so his kids Josh and Mary Kate, who both have Down syndrome, would have work after they aged out of school. By the time TODAY profiled the family on October 20, 2021, they had sold more than 10,000 treats around Cincinnati in about six months.

Wegener found the truck in January 2021 and had it on the road by April. He told TODAY’s Craig Melvin that the name came from his wife.

“My wife had the the brilliant idea to name it Special Neat Treats, a play on words of special needs,” he said.

Josh and Mary Kate both work on the truck. Wegener said he saw it as an answer to a question that follows parents of kids with special needs from one stage of life to the next.

“What can we do to give them worth and to allow them to add some value to society?” he said.

He was upfront about the long game, too. “I don’t know that either one of them will ever be totally independent,” Wegener said. “But we hope to move them in that direction, and I hope they can keep helping me sell ice cream for a long time.”

The school visit that stuck with him

Over the summer, a local school running a program for students with special needs asked Wegener to bring treats for an afternoon. A girl there walked up and thanked him.

“Thanks for coming today; you made my day,” she told him, according to Wegener.

That changed how he thought about the whole thing. “I realized, when I left, this isn’t about selling ice cream,” he said. “We do that, but it’s about giving hope, it’s about interacting with people and just sharing joy.”

“I didn’t cure her autism, I didn’t take care of the other issues in her life, but for one day for one moment, she had a great day,” he added.

The kids were also picking up practical skills along the way. FOX19 reported in July 2021 that they were learning business and communication skills while working with their dad.

The menu is classic truck fare. Malay Mail reported that cones, chocolate bars and frozen candy bars were on offer, and that the bestseller was a SpongeBob popsicle. The family had sold close to 5,000 treats by that point, so the count roughly doubled between July and October.

Mary Kate told TODAY she looked forward to “always” working on the truck, and called her dad “the best dad ever.” Wegener said that when teachers and others asked her what she wanted to do when she got older, she answered that she wanted to work with Papa.

Wegener called working beside his kids “the greatest joy.” He also admitted it wasn’t the plan. “In my wildest dreams, I would have never sat around and said ‘An ice cream truck, that’s where I’m going to spend the rest of my life,'” he said.

The truck came from an Indiana family that had run it with their own children with special needs, Cincinnati Magazine reported. The Wegeners sell frozen treats at neighborhoods and events around Greater Cincinnati in spring and summer, and Wegener’s wife and another daughter sometimes take a turn driving. The magazine described the business as job training for Josh and Mary Kate.

The road got bumpy in 2023. Loveland Magazine reported that the family’s main truck suffered an engine failure in May 2023, and a second truck they had bought also needed major repairs. A fundraising effort set a goal of $6,000 to cover the work.

Cincinnati Magazine reported on August 23, 2024 that Wegener had bought a second truck to take Special Neat Treats to more neighborhoods and events across Greater Cincinnati.