Harrisville ice cream shop continuing after owner’s death
Nicole Hughes-Shaffer recently uprooted her and her family’s life to return from Carlisle, in Cumberland County, to her hometown of Harrisville to continue her father’s goal of keeping the family ice cream shop open for 100 years.
A show of support from the community Saturday, July 27, made Hughes-Shaffer confident that her family could get Hughes Penn Gold Ice Cream to 2028 and beyond.
The shop hosted its first Christmas in July event Saturday, which Hughes-Shaffer said had a lot of attendance and donations to the Salvation Army, which her dad, the late Gary Hughes, was long involved with.
Gary Hughes ran the shop for years, until his death June 1. Hughes-Shaffer said the success of the Christmas in July event may lead her to host other community events at the shop in the future.
“It was better than we expected and we got all kinds of people in and it was a good day,” she said. “There was always not necessarily events at the shop itself, it was more reaching out to communities and churches. We are hoping to have more events at the shop itself.”
According to Hughes-Shaffer, the Salvation Army gathered more than $600 in donations throughout the day Saturday. Santa was at the event throughout the day, and shop had two special Christmas-themed flavors of ice cream to commemorate the event.
Having just inherited the family ice cream shop and the family legacy her dad wanted to leave, Hughes-Shaffer said the success of its first community event gave her a lot of anticipation for the future.
“I think (dad) would have been very happy with it,” Hughes-Shaffer said. “That's also what has kept us going is the positive words that everyone has been happy we're still open.”
