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Kona Ice franchise offers opportunity in the Mid-Ohio Valley

PARKERSBURG – A new Kona Ice franchise is providing opportunities for students to learn about business, a local man to make a career change and give back to the community and the company’s founder to return to his hometown.

Kona Ice was started in 2007 in northern Kentucky near Cincinnati by Tony Lamb, a 1987 graduate of Parkersburg High School. The mobile shaved ice company began franchising in 2008 and has been ranked one of the fastest-growing franchises in the country by Entrepreneur Magazine for the last five years, Lamb said.

But with about 800 franchises nationwide, including 123 added this year, the closest Kona operation to Parkersburg was based in Athens, Ohio.

“I just always thought Parkersburg would be such a great market, because it’s so community-oriented,” Lamb said.

Barlow resident John Church was the man to make it happen. On Aug. 19, a grand opening was held for Church’s Kona Ice truck at Parkersburg High School, where the business will be a Partner in Education. Lamb came back to his old stomping grounds for the festivities.

“I was just really excited that a great franchisee was going to come in to my original hometown,” he said.

A certified welding inspector and owner of his own fabrication shop, Church said he was looking to change careers. He is friends with the Athens franchisee and started looking into the possibility of opening his own.

“At first, I didn’t think there was a whole lot to it,” Church admitted.

But then he saw how much his friend was able to give back to the community through his business. It’s part of the model for Kona, which Lamb said has donated $35 million back to the communities in which the franchises operate.

In June, Church and his partner, Michelle Huxley, took delivery of their KEV (Kona Entertainment Vehicle) and got to work. The next month, they set up a kiosk truck at the Ohio River Levee in Marietta from 4 p.m. to dark. On football Fridays, they will take that kiosk to games, selling cool treats and sharing the proceeds with the host school.

“If it’s a good event … we generally can give back 25 percent of everything we sell to the school,” Church said.

The Kona trucks have served shaved ice at back-to-school celebrations, youth sporting events and more. Their franchise covers Parkersburg, Belpre and Marietta, and Church said they’re already looking to expand.

At the grand opening, Church signed the Partner in Education agreement with PHS Principal Pam Goots and Chamber of Commerce of the Mid-Ohio Valley President and CEO Jill Parsons in the Memorial Field House, with a smaller stand decked out like a Kona Ice truck nearby. That stand will stay at the school, where the entrepreneurship class will operate it at events and get experience making decisions on scheduling, inventory and the like.

Other groups can also run it for events and keep the proceeds, Goots said.

“It sounded like a win-win to me,” she said.

Also at the event, Lamb donated $5,000 to the PHS Foundation, earmarked for equipment and assistance for students with disabilities. He remembered the challenges a neighbor of his faced when they were both students there.

“They were always under-funded. They always needed this or needed that,” Lamb said.

Lamb was also taking the opportunity to enjoy meals at three of his favorite local eateries – Colombo’s, the Pizza Place and Rubin’s Deli.

“I’m going to hit all three of them before I leave town,” he said.

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