Howell Melon Festival Gears Up To Make 2,000 Half-Gallons of Special Ice Cream for 65th Year

Michigan's Howell Rotary Club members are mixing up batches of their famed melon ice cream. The sweet frozen treat will star at the town's 65th Melon Festival this August.

"It's a lot of ice cream," said Sandie Cortez, the Rotary Club ice cream chair, according to CBS Detroit. "We sell over 2,000 or close to 2,000 family size, which is like a half gallon."

Once each year, workers at Guernsey Farms Dairy craft this special blend. Fresh cantaloupes from local fields give the ice cream its distinct taste. The mix turns out softer than store brands. "It's just creamier, so it's not as hard as like a vanilla ice cream that you'd buy in the store, but it's not a sherbet," Cortez said.

The story starts with a chance meeting. Years ago, a passing hobo gave some seeds to someone who owned a greenhouse. Those seeds grew into the first batch of what we now call Howell melons: big, sweet melons that put the town on the map.

The ice cream itself came from George Spagnuolo's kitchen experiments. Now it takes a small army, 60 to 75 pairs of hands, to pack all the containers before the big event.

Each scoop sold means more books for kids, spots at summer camps, and aid for town projects. The Rotary Club puts every penny back into making the community better.

Want to taste this once-a-year treat? Mark August 8 on your calendar: that's the cut-off for orders. Miss the deadline, and you might miss out completely. When it's gone, it's gone until next summer.

The festival runs for five days, filling streets with music and food stands. Smart shoppers are already clicking through the website to save their share of this summer's batch.