Dylan Whiting | Staff Photographer

Cookie dough, brownie bites, Frosted Flakes, strawberries, bananas, Cocoa Puffs, and more —  with 24,379 possible ice cream orders, it would take more than a semester of free scoops to try them all. Luckily, Campus Creamery’s giveaway winners are giving it their best shot.

Campus Creamery, opened in 2023 by then-sophomore Harrison Lieber, has quickly become a cornerstone of the South 40. With a whimsical space theme and ice cream album covers lining its walls, the Creamery, located in a Gregg House storefront, serves sweet treats late into the night. 

Lieber began plotting out the idea for the business almost as soon as he set foot on campus in August 2021. After a year and a half spent building out his idea with the help of the Skandalaris Center for Interdisciplinary Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Lieber’s dream was realized. 

Since its opening two years ago, Campus Creamery’s offerings have expanded to include waffles, catering, and even branded merchandise. Lieber, now a senior, credits his growth and success to the campus that the Creamery serves.

“I thought the community on the South 40 was just so special,” Lieber said. “The main priority of the business is obviously [that] it needs to make money. But the reason I started [Campus Creamery] was I felt like campus needed it, and I wanted to do something cool and community-oriented.”

Campus Creamery’s dedication to the WashU community is apparent. In addition to its annual Halloween costume contest, the Creamery also runs an ice cream giveaway each semester. For the price of a like, a comment, and a repost, participants earn a chance to win a daily ice cream for the entire term.

The giveaways began in the spring of 2023, as part of Campus Creamery’s grand opening, and have been a recurring promotion every semester since. Besides the fun competition, the giveaways also act as a self-sustaining advertising tool.

“Instead of paying for marketing and trying to get in front of everyone’s face and sending emails out and doing this huge marketing campaign, [the giveaway] is the only marketing that we do,” Lieber said.

The free promotion works; the giveaway post in 2023 racked up 483 likes and 273 comments from vying ice cream lovers, while the most recent giveaway this fall garnered 272 reposts and shares. By tapping into the interconnectedness of the South 40, the Creamery has found a way to integrate itself into the community.

“[Campus Creamery] is in this really isolated and interwoven community where so many people know each other, especially on social media,” Lieber said. “You have mutuals with me, and then that person has mutuals with you, and that person has mutuals with that person. Ten people post it, 100 people see it, and when those 100 people spread it, 1000 people see it.” 

Out of those anecdotal 1000 are a couple of select, lucky winners who suddenly find themselves with a windfall of ice cream. First-year Itohan Salami, who won the giveaway this fall, has devised a system to share her wealth on days when she’s not ordering her favorite dairy-free vanilla with cookie dough, brownie bites, and Oreos.

“My friends curated a system,” Salami said. “Somebody has Monday, somebody has Tuesday, and so on. They’ll text me, like, ‘Can I have my ice cream today?’”

Salami’s strategy ensures that she gets the maximum value from her winnings, although Lieber says the benefits from the giveaway alone more than make up for the cost of the free ice cream.

“A couple of people get really lucky and get to have a bunch of free ice cream,” Lieber said. “But … even if they come every night, I imagine that our sales in the first week … make up for it.”

For first-year Mya Silveyra, her semester of free ice cream ties her not only to the WashU community but also to her family in Chicago. Here, she gets vanilla ice cream with Fruity Pebbles, Froot Loops, and brownie bites, but any ice cream is always a welcome treat.

“I love ice cream,” Silveyra said. “It’s so classic for my family … On nice evenings, we’ll … get ice cream and then just drive around … Every time I think of ice cream, I think of my family, because that’s our go-to dessert to get together.” 

The giveaway raises the eternal question: Is it possible to have too much ice cream? Between three bases, 17 mix-ins, and the cone or cup debate, these three winners have found that their marginal benefit on ice cream has yet to diminish. 

“I personally do not believe there is such a thing as too much ice cream, and it’s definitely not possible for something to be ‘too sweet,’” sophomore Kelsey Conover, a spring 2025 giveaway winner, said. “[That] is salty food propaganda.”

Silveyra, halfway through her semester of free ice cream, concurs.

“If I’m not tired of it yet, then I’m never getting tired of it,” Silveyra said.