Junk Food Nation, no delays!  Let’s get right to the winner of the two peanut butters (any flavor) and two jams/jellies (any flavor) from Peanut Butter & Co.!  Thanks to all who participated and entered!  Tons and tons of retweets – you did me proud, Junk Food Nation.  Using the random number generator at Random.org, I assigned every entry a number, clicked the button, and found my winner:

*** @delaneyyyw ***

Congratulations, @delaneyyyw!  E-mail your contact info to junkfoodguy@junkfoodguy.com and Peanut Butter & Co. will mail you your prize as soon as they can! Enjoy!

I wanted to mention what I was up to on Saturday. As you know, I’ve been working with Turkey Hill Ice Cream since the Spring, helping to promote their All-Natural line of ice cream.  Task 1 was to hold an ice cream taste test – done! Task 2 was to hold an online promotion – which you guys were well aware of, as I held MONTH LONG daily contests to win some free ice cream.  My third and final task was simple to held spread the All-Natural ice cream love OUTDOORS during the hot hot summer.

My August was pretty busy, so this past weekend was the only free Saturday I had. I thought it’d be perfect – the last weekend before Labor Day, right before kids went back to school!  I had some swag to give away and prizes to hand out too, so I was excited.

Step 1: MAKE SIGNS

I took my old Taste Test sign (yup, still had it) and turned it into a general FREE ICE CREAM sign on the right. And then I wanted to do something different and get the people tasting the ice cream to participate with me to show the Turkey Hill love. So, I created: IceCreamgram!

Yep, I’m artistic.  Sort of. I know how to color, let’s leave it at that.

Step 2: Find a location. I held my first event at a park with a bunch of random families and their kids, so I wanted to try something different this time.  My choice ended up being Fenton Street Market, an outdoor market that pops up every Saturday in downtown Silver Spring, MD. It was perfect – LOTS of random people in an area near easy parking.  This is what it sometimes looks like:

Beautiful, right?  Yeah…now imagine this with pretty much non-stop rain.  That would be the scene on Saturday. Rain, rain rain.  Still, undaunted, I WAS DETERMINED TO GIVE AWAY FREE ICE CREAM, RAIN OR SHINE!

This was my set-up – TEN 1.5 QT containers of All-Natural ice cream, inside my handy dandy Turkey Hill Cooler. I had vanilla, chocolate, salted caramel, and the new Limited Edition Banana Peanut Butter featuring (what else) but Peanut Butter & Co. peanut butter!

Yes, this was a dry spot under the glass roof you saw two pictures above. Let’s try a different angle:

Yeah, see the glistening pavement behind me? Yep…it was a wet day out.

Still, as soon as the cooler opened, people FLOCKED over.  On top of that, a TON of folks were excited to take IceCreamgrams to show how much they loved what they were tasting!  Sidenote: Yeah, when you buy TEN 1.5 qt containers of ice cream – there’s PLENTY to go around.  I was shoving three-four Dixie Cups full of frozen goodness into people’s hands.

Check out some of these IceCreamgrams!

And these were just a small portion of the people who were filtering in and out of the market.  AKA, these were just a small portion of the people who I managed to bribe with prizes to let me take their picture with my makeshift sign.

One of the coolest aspects of the market that day was live music, put on by Crush Funk Brass – new friends of Junkfoodguy.com!

Brass covers of modern day pop songs like “Fancy” by Iggy Azalea?  GENIUS.

After their set, the members of Crush Funk got their Turkey Hill on…

Plus, I couldn’t resist awarding their group shot with some swag: some magnets, free ice cream coupons, and of course, a camo Turkey Hill baseball cap!

MORE ICECREAMGRAMS!

About two hours in, the rain started to REALLY pick up after being off and on, and I had just a little bit of ice cream left.  Couldn’t let it go to waste, so…

Ah, vanilla. Down it goes. Down into my belly.

AND THAT WAS A WRAP.

Takeaways from this day:

1. People love free ice cream, even when it’s pouring rain out.

2. I was (actually) sort of shocked at how many people loved Turkey Hill but didn’t realize that you could buy it around here.  Um, hello? The central HQ is like 1.5 hrs away.  I certainly HOPE you can buy it around here.

3. PEOPLE LOVED THE BANANA PEANUT BUTTER FLAVOR.  No surprise that this and salted caramel went quickest.

4. People will look at you warily when you ask to take their picture, but as soon as you offer an unnamed prize, THEY WERE ALL FOR IT!

5. One thing the Junk Food Gal and I gave to every customer was a $1 off their own 1.5 qt tub of Turkey Hill All-Natural Ice Cream.  People LOVE coupons.  Holy hell – some people came back asking for seconds, not on the ice cream, but on the coupons!  I forced them to take another sample of ice cream anyways. They were happy with the decision.

It really was a wonderful time, and you’ve never seen so many faces light up as when you yell at a group of passers-by “FREE ICE CREAM!”

And thus wraps up my time with Turkey Hill 🙁 It was great working with them, and hopefully I can still have a relationship in the future!  Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go eat some ice cream…

Thoughts? Please comment below or hit me up on Twitter @junkfoodguy or LIKE my Facebook Page and message me there. I also have Google+!! Let’s hang out.

Sincerely,

Junk Food Guy