With summer heating up, the DeLeon’s season of serving frozen gourmet treats is just getting started, but come winter, the resulting cases of popsicles will be recycled, providing shelters for stray cats, through the Dayton Community Cat Project and other organizations.
As the first Frios franchise in Ohio, the DeLeons opened for business in 2022. Selling popsicles shipped to their business all summer, they go through up to 1,000 cases of popsicles a year: Styrofoam coolers stuffed with dry ice and delicious goodies.
“It has grown greatly,” she said. “Now we have a second truck, and then we do wholesale, so the more we grew, the more we get these coolers.”
Prior to her partnership with Dayton Community Cat Project, DeLeon would load up her vehicle with the leftover Styrofoam coolers and drive them down to a recycling center in Mason, which was not only time consuming, inconvenient and expensive, but felt wasteful, she said.
" It didn’t take me very long before I said, ‘There’s got to be another way,’" she said. “I just got 20 today, and that would have been probably two car loads.”
Augustina started looking around for solutions, asking people primarily on Facebook if they could find a use for them but to no avail, until she connected with founder Chris Banks of the Dayton Community Cat Project.
Banks, herself a Community Gem in 2021, nominated Augustina as a Dayton Daily News Community Gem this year.
“This will be our fifth fall that we create winter shelters,” Banks said. " if it was our own budget, we would probably only make 45 to 50, but because we’re not having to dip into our budget, we’re able to provide 60 to 75. It’s just beautiful."
Now, the styrofoam coolers are filled with straw, volunteers cut doors in the sides, and duct tape the lid to stay shut, cutting down not only the cost, but also the amount of work it takes to make them.
Coolers are also provided to other cat-focused charities in the Dayton area, or are reused and recycled by other food trucks, fishing enthusiasts, and others.
The Dayton Community Cat Project had previously been purchasing plastic tubs and insulation to make the shelters. At roughly $20 a shelter, and distributing between 50 and 75 shelters a season, the expense was adding up fast.
Now, their collaboration has inspired franchises around the country to do the same. Sharing her solution on Facebook, Augustina inspired other Frios franchisees across the country to do the same.
“It’s just a win-win-win,” Banks said. “It saves her an immense amount of time from having to go down to Mason. It’s helping Mother Earth, it’s helping homeless kitties, and it’s helping our budget.”
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