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In late February 2017, we found out about Kona Ice through Lee Ann Hammond who came into the flower shop that Brenda worked at. Lee Ann was visiting her son and his wife, who was stationed at Moody Air Force Base for the birth of her grandchild. Brenda and Lee Ann struck up a quick 5 minute conversation while the flower arrangement was being made. Lee Ann was telling Brenda that she, too was also in the floral business, but now owns Kona Ice Rocks E. Coll,in & Hunt Co. It took us over 2 years to finally find out that Lee Ann Hammond was the Franchise that told Brenda about Kona Ice. We had never heard, seen, or tasted a Kona at that time. Brenda was working at Valdosta Greenhouse and I was working for Coca-Cola, and we had about 15 accounts mowing yards on weekends. Brenda handed me the card that had "Kona Ice" hand written on it from Lee Ann. No, it wasn't a Kona Ice business card because I don't think any of us carry those on us at all times. That afternoon, Brenda jokingly said "here is another side job for us to do". I spent hours researching Kona Ice and immediately fell in love with it. We fully invested into something that we really knew nothing about. May 27, 2017 we brought Kona Ice to Valdosta, GA. Not long after we attended Kona Kollege and started our Kona business, Brenda left the floral industry. In October 2018, I left Coca-Cola and went all in with Kona Ice. For our 5th year celebration, Brenda went out and got a Kona Ice tattoo and I went out the next day to get mine so we could match each other. It is so cool to have a real Kona tattoo for the customers that we hand Konas to.
We currently have 3 trucks, a Kiosk, and a KET and 3 territories in South GA and North FL. We paid off our 4th piece of equipment last week, and plan to pay off the final truck before the end of the year. I met with a commercial real estate agent today to look at a 5 bay warehouse on 3 acres of land. Two years ago, we gave back over $76,000.00 and last year we gave back over $110,000.00. This year we are expecting more business to come in the last half of the year. We have been running 4 and 5 units a day with the need to add more units. We call on our neighbors to help out if we have events that we can't cover to keep other snow cone vendors out of events. Your Kona neighbors are your best asset. We have the best Kona neighbors and we all work together. If any of our neighbors need us, they know they can call us and we will be there.
We currently have 16 employees with most being high school students who work events where our KET (Wild Adventures Theme and Water Park) and Kiosk (Valdosta Mall) are stationed. Our drivers work at schools, sporting events, corporate events, and set up at several Walmart stores in our territories to help them out with Children's Miracle Network when we don't have events. Our local Sam's Club let us set up anytime we wanted to all year. We cut Sam's Club a check for over 4 digits for the giveback this year. We have had most Walmart stores give us permission to set up anytime we are able to all year. This happened after the CMN campaign ended this year.
We use KonaOS to keep track of all the sales during the year. Our newest employee that will be joining us full time August 24th will be our daughter. This will be a huge asset to our business because she has been a Finance Manager for a business that had 15 different branches throughout two states. She has been with this business for 17 years and we have been trying to hire her for over 6 years. She is going to be our office manager so that we can get out and do more Face to Face meetings with all of our schools and major clients instead of being tied down doing office work.
The biggest joy is WE are making a difference in our communities by serving smiles one cup at a time. We started the rebuilding process in Port St. Joe, 10 days after Hurricane Michael hit and destroyed that town. When we arrived, no one was talking to each other and were all walking around in a daze. We showed up and brought people who lost everything together. People they had never met were delivering smiles over a cup of shaved ice. We gave out over 700 cups of Kona Ice to people who had nothing, and it made them smile and start talking to each other. Groups of people gathered around the Kona Ice truck. Kids that no one knew were even in the area showed up. It gives you the greatest joy knowing you are in a position to do something like this. No other business could give you this caring moment, because you didn't own it or have the resources to help like a Kona Franchise can. This is one of many events that has given us great joy. I believe if you take good care of your communities, they will take good care of you.
We gave out Kona Ice to firefighters who were battling a huge fire on one of the hottest days of the year. The firemen were almost completely exhausted but were jumping for joy like children when we showed up and gave each one of them a free Kona. We did it because we placed ourselves in the place of the firefighters and could only imagine what it must be like in that hot suit battling a hot blaze in a 102 degree heat. It is the small things that make a world of difference in your community and people do not forget it.
Our biggest challenge is hiring and keeping quality employees, as well as getting into our Parks and Recreation Department. They have almost 30 parks throughout our county. Several major sporting complexes that host many travel tournaments. I go to the Board of Directors meetings as often as I can and see all the money going out and hardly any fundraising or funds for money coming in. I have been trying for 6 years and am hoping one day we will be able to get in. I know the answer will always be "no" if you never ask or keep trying.
If we could go back and do something differently, it would be to hire employees as soon as we were able to. That would have freed us up to network in our communities and let the employees do the laboring part of the job. Cleaning the trucks, commissary, and help with making base and manual labor stuff that is done behind the scenes. This would have given us more energy and time to get out and meet more clients.
Kona Ice is the best business that anyone can be in. We have the resources available to go as far as you are wanting to go in this business. Like everything in life, if you want it bad enough you have to work hard at it. You can have a great successful business, but also need great neighbors to fall back on when you need them. There is one thing about all of us. We all have private Facebook groups within Kona Ice where we can all communicate with each other no matter what part of the country we are in. We should all work together for the brand and each other. We are KONA STRONG and proud of it.
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