Valley ice cream shop encouraged voters with free scoops

Leaning out of a red, white and blue truck in downtown Phoenix’s Civic Space Park on Sunday afternoon, Helen Yung gave out free ice cream to encourage attendees to vote and volunteer.

Yung is the co-founder of Arizona-based ice cream shop Sweet Republic and her two kids, aged two and seven, attended the event with their mom. This election season, she wants to ensure others have the same rights she did.

Yung had her children through in-vitro fertilization or IVF.

After Alabama’s State Supreme Court ruled that embryos were legally classified as children earlier this year, IVF access was threatened across the state. It became a topic in the nation’s political battle surrounding access to reproductive rights.

“I can’t imagine not having these two kids,” Yung said, noting that if her access to the procedure had been limited, “I don’t know if I could have done it.”

She called the politicization around IVF “horrifying” and said it was “just meddling way too much in people’s medical decisions.”

While Yung typically avoids mixing politics with business, when the progressive public policy advocacy organization MoveOn reached out a week before Sunday’s event, Yung’s passion for reproductive rights led her to jump at the opportunity.

“I wouldn’t want to be in the shoes of women, who want to be mothers, facing all these difficult decisions, because they really shouldn’t have to do this,” Yung said. “A woman should have the right to choose what she does with her body.”

Through the organization’s “Scoop the Vote” campaign, attendees receive a free scoop of ice cream as a part of the event to encourage them to engage in early voting and volunteer with Democratic campaigns, such as MoveOn’s organizing.

“My business and I both personally vote Democrat and support Kamala Harris, so we decided to go ahead with it,” Yung said.

Over a hundred free scoops of Sweet Republic’s vanilla bean, brownie fudge swirl, blueberry-lemon custard and coconut sorbet were given out of MoveOn’s patriotic-painted truck.

Local candidates and party leaders including Maricopa County Recorder candidate Democrat Tim Stringham, Arizona Democrats Chair Yolanda Bejarano and State House Reps. Oscar De Los Santos and Quantá Crews urged attendees to get out and vote at the event.

Sweet Republic’s partnership with MoveOn is a part of the organization’s bigger effort to turn out voters nationwide. They’ve worked with ice cream makers across the country and given out “a couple thousand” scoops” since they started the tour, according to MoveOn spokesperson Britt Jacovich.

“The energy has been incredibly exciting,” Jacovich said. “not just here but in every shop we’ve done and people are clearly really leaning into the joy and really excited to elect Democrats this fall.”

In addition to Phoenix, the “Scoop the Vote” tour has made stops in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania and will continue onto Nevada, Georgia and North Carolina – to name a few.

While Sweet Republic’s flavors kept their normal names, other locations boasted treats renamed with political puns, such as “Unburdened By What Has Vanilla Bean,” “Fight for your Right Sorbet,” “MoveOn Mobilizer Chocolate” and “Inauguration Celebration Birthday Cake.”