Ice Cream Man heads south on charitable mission
BY MARY LANCASTER INDEPENDENT WRITER
Ben Shelton, the Ice Cream Man who brought joy to island children this summer, will become Bicycle Man on Sunday when he loads his 1970 Ford step van, still decorated for the ice cream business, with bicycles intended for poor Mexican farmers to help them earn needed family income.

ROB BENCHLEY/The Independent Shelton is driving his ice cream truck, loaded with bicycles for poor farmers, to Chilapa, Mexico.

Shelton will drive approximately 60 hours to the small village of Almolonga, where he lived for three years before spending the last two years on Nantucket. He will work on one of the village's little farms this winter but, most importantly, he will be bringing the residents and people who live in the nearby, and somewhat larger village of Chilapa, bicycles they can use to transport goods to sell and aid their family's meager incomes.

"The people are very poor. They are sustenance farmers, and if they have extra crops they have no way to get around to sell them," Shelton explained. "A lot of the [villagers] physically carry things by hand if they don't have a donkey. The bikes will help bring income to these people. If everybody in a village has the same crops they can't really trade, but this will enable people to sell them. Some are so poor a dollar means a lot, but the thing is, even though they are poor these people seem so happy and you see people in the United States who have millions and still aren't happy."

Shelton, as of last Friday, had just three donated bikes so far, but he hopes to take at least 25 on the trip. He is removing his ice cream freezer from the truck, which he has been working on to ensure it makes the journey, to fit the bikes. He said the tough, mountainous Mexico terrain calls for the strongest bicycles in good condition anyone can spare. Because many of the villagers are short in stature, large-frame bikes are not necessary but it is important that they are reliable.

The Ice Cream Man will return to Nantucket next spring to renew his license with the selectmen and the health department. Shelton said he only broke even on the business this season, but wants to continue it because of the excitement it brought to children as he drove through neighborhoods in the evenings ringing his "happy bell" and offering special frozen goodies for the kids after dinner.

Anyone wanting to donate a bike to Shelton's

cause may contact him at 1-774-236-9950. I