By writer to lancasteronline.com
A former truck driver and warehouse employee, Scott Mencer grew to become the “Ice Cream Man” in 2003 when he helped open an ice cream store in Quarryville.
Named for his son, Jason, who had the concept after graduating from Solanco Excessive College, Son’s Ice Cream was a small walk-up store on a facet avenue of their hometown.
After Jason left the enterprise in 2010 to take a job at Amtrak, Mencer’s daughter, Sherry Fleischut, obtained extra concerned, finally taking on administration of the Quarryville store when she and her dad opened an East Petersburg location in 2012.
Whereas the elder Mencer was in a position to construct a profitable enterprise via exhausting work, his daughter says he has the tendency to work just a little too exhausting.
Mencer was recognized to work 60 to 70 hours per week on the East Petersburg store, typically manning each the walk-up window and the drive-thru by himself.
However a number of years in the past, Mencer began feeling so run down that he simply couldn’t do it anymore. He missed the 2019 season because the fatigue from what he realized was practically full kidney failure put him on his again.
“It was so dangerous. I simply didn’t wish to be right here. I simply needed to put down and die,” he stated. “I’d get worn out simply placing my garments on within the morning.”
At present, the 61-year-old Mencer is retired from the enterprise and his daughter oversees the operation, which might be increasing this spring with a brand new location — its third — on the former Swan Resort in Strasburg.
As he fingers over the reins, Mencer says he has full confidence in his daughter. He additionally has a newfound appreciation for her generosity, which resulted in her donating a kidney to him in October.
“I’m simply so blessed to have this kidney, and grateful. It’s exhausting to explain.” he stated. “Everyone I see I’ve obtained to inform, and I all the time obtained to inform who my donor was.”
Slowing down
Son’s options soft-serve ice cream, Italian ices, hand-dipped ice cream and milkshakes together with ice cream truffles and different frozen treats. Three years after it opened, Son’s moved to its present Quarryville spot at 319 W. State St.
When her dad and brother began Son’s ice cream store 17 years in the past, Sherry Fleischut, now 37, helped with some menu planning and different small duties.
However Fleischut, who obtained married the yr the store opened, largely stayed on the periphery of the enterprise, whose emblem was primarily based on a drawing of her youthful brother.
“He has so much much less hair now,” she says.
A former preschool trainer and dental workplace supervisor, Fleischut finally realized to handle the stock, menu modifications and staffing wants of an ice cream store the place most workers are highschool college students.
Final summer time, she was additionally coping with her dad’s well being downside as he started an exhausting routine of dialysis over 139 nights, throughout which he was hooked as much as an in-home machine for 9 hours an evening.
Because the dialysis continued, father and daughter have been working via the medical and emotional points that may cause them to the outcome he initially resisted, however which she all the time assumed would occur: He would get considered one of her kidneys.
“I knew from the start that I used to be going to be the one to do that,” she stated. “I had peace about it.”
However convincing her dad was one other matter.
“I informed her no,” he stated.
She obtained him to relent by interesting to his love for his personal mom, who died in 2010.
“In case your mother wanted a kidney, you imply to inform me you wouldn’t be first in line to offer her a kidney?” she recalled asking him. “And that’s all it took.”
New roles
After the Oct. 22 transplant surgical procedure, Mencer stated it felt like he had his life again. “After I wakened within the restoration room, I felt nice,” he stated.
As his restoration continues, the indicators have been good that the donated kidney might be a long-term match.
For Fleischut, whose personal restoration took round three weeks, the lasting impact from the surgical procedure has been a profound sense of well-being.
“That feeling that you simply get from having the ability to give somebody their life again. … For me, I can’t clarify how you are feeling to have the ability to try this for somebody,” she stated.
Whereas each father and daughter have develop into advocates for organ donation — dad regularly wears a shirt that claims “Saved by Jesus and an organ donor” — they’ve additionally been occupied with the following chapter for Son’s.
After a chance Fleischut described as “falling in our lap,” they’re planning to open the brand new store in Strasburg. The store would take a spot in a part of the previous Swan Resort, a tavern that was 226 years previous when it closed in March 2018.
Slated to open in late February or early March, the brand new store makes geographic sense for the enterprise, which is now totally managed by Fleischut after her dad’s official retirement.
“I really feel like this prognosis for him and this journey he went on was God’s method of getting him to decelerate,” she stated. “It was sufficient for him to appreciate that it’s OK for him to retire.”
As she takes the enterprise management function as soon as occupied by her dad and brother, Fleischut says she’s feeling assured in her new function.
“Final yr was my yr to shine and present (my dad) that it’s OK handy over the belief and duty to me,” he stated. “It allowed me to truly do what I used to be fairly positive I knew tips on how to do.”
— to lancasteronline.com
