Hannah Hanlon, Staff Writer

The early afternoon temperature was around 82 degrees on Thursday, May 2, but things were a lot cooler at the International Gardens!

The Public Health Student Association (PHSA) at Armstrong hosted their end of the year social with free popsicles provided by Savannah Square Pops to all students who attended to offer some stress relief before finals.

“We’re actually a new student association,” said Christina Cook, a graduate student in Public Health. “We started back in March, so this is part of our end of the year social. This is the first time we’re doing this.”

“So we thought we’d go slightly big but not too big.”

Judd Wiggins, the owner of Savannah Square Pops, has been in business for almost three years. He worked with Cook previously at the campus farmer’s market.

“She had asked us to do this for them again,” said Wiggins. “I enjoy it.”

Students had their choice of six available flavors: Cookies & Cream, Black-Cherry Lime, Tart Lemonade, Peach Mango and Pineapple Sunset, which seemed to be one of the most popular, according to Cook.

Shaye Escritor, a senior in Finance, and Oscar McGrath, a senior in Business Economics both enjoyed peach mango popsicles.

Word travels fast when free popsicles are available on campus! They both heard about the event from another student.

“We had a friend who walked by and told us ‘hey, they got a thing over here, come check it out,’ said McGrath.”

“Yeah, word of mouth,” said Escritor.

Escritor and McGrath were two of the 83 students, with a few repeat students, who came by for popsicles within the first hour of the event, which started at noon.

“We were completely out of popsicles by 1:15 p.m.,” said Cook. “We had the event scheduled until 2 p.m.”

There are high hopes that a freezer for Savannah Square Pops will eventually be available on campus, according to Cook.

“We would love to have Savannah Square Pops on campus,” said Cook. “Judd is local, and we would love to see more local businesses represented on campus to help further support our local economy.”

Gauging from the successful turnout of this event, it seems likely that this could become a ‘freeze’-able possibility!