After getting around 70% of the rain Oklahoma will usually see all year in just the last 90 days, it finally feels like summer in Sapulpa, and a crowd was gathering at the new snow cone stand that had just opened a few days ago in front of Wimpy’s Sandwich Shoppe (18 N. Mission). Several families had just come from swimming at the Sapulpa Aquatic Center and wanted a break from the heat without breaking the bank.

African Ice, the snow cone stand founded and predominantly run by Elizabeth Been, has actually been around for about three years total, but has only recently set up shop in Sapulpa.
Had been located in Okemah, but competition began showing up, and so Been began looking for a place to move the trailer to. She learned that this summer, Sapulpa has had to get along without a snow cone stand—a departure from the last several years that saw at least one or two stands in town.


African Ice is dedicated to raising funds to support the missionary work of Abraham and Sylvia Wanderer, who run an orphanage in Africa.
“I became connected to Abraham and Sylvia six years ago, and we’ve developed a relationship,” she said. Been said she travels to Africa twice a year to help support their mission work and assist in the orphanage and now a school.
“Right now, there are 30 kids in the orphanage, and now he’s created the school,” she said. “It started out in the church, and it’s just taken small steps and gotten bigger and bigger. There are about 100 kids in the school.”
Been said that the snow cone stand—and other fundraisers—were all started to help the kids in this orphanage go to school.
“It costs about $350 per child per semester to go to school,” she said. “I have done fundraisers, and pulled pork sandwiches, and Indian tacos, dipped strawberries…I was just looking for something to help sustain them. I ran a snow cone stand about 10 years ago in Okemah, and I knew that would make enough money to sustain them through the year.”
The school is just the latest achievement in the steady progress that area of Africa has seen for years, thanks in part to the proceeds from the fundraisers that Elizabeth Been has involved herself in.
“They were getting water from a river or creek that would be contaminated, and they got malaria a lot,” she said. “We drilled a well for him and now they have clean water. A lot of people go to the well to get water, but there have also been about 40 to 50 were saved and given the ‘real water.'”

Been says that the work they’re doing in Africa is going beyond helping children, to actually helping adults start a business so that they can then support themselves.
“The first money for this is going to support the women to start a business with sugar scrubs, and sell that to help themselves,” she said. “These people don’t even have the $3 to buy the sack of sugar to make the sugar scrubs, so I’ve already sent money to them. They’ll make 18, can sell those for $1 or $2 and that’s huge. So it’s helping children, but it’s also enhancing lives there.”
Elizabeth says that African Ice will be at Wimpy’s through July and most of August “at least.” The stand is open from 2pm to 8pm every day.