Scooping Up Smiles: Sara Heintzelman M’11 Has a Mission to Empower Through Education and Entrepreneurship 

While balancing night classes and teaching full-time, Sara Heintzelman M’11 felt a pull toward opening her own business. What started as a recurring observation in the classroom led Heintzelman to take action: she began learning to make homemade ice cream, bought an industrial-sized ice cream machine and navigated building a vision for her shop across the next five years.

Heintzelman, a technology integration specialist at Lehigh’s Centennial School that serves students with emotional disturbance and autism, noticed that students at the school were hesitant to find a first job or couldn’t find one.

“It really stuck with me and I looked at it as a problem that I might be able to help solve,” she said.

She took her ice cream-making knowledge and passion for mentoring those with different abilities and started her own business with her husband, Michael Pilato, Get Joy Ice Cream and Coffee, which opened in June on Bethlehem’s Route 378. Get Joy is creating employment opportunities for individuals with different abilities while sharing happiness with the community through ice cream and coffee.

“I hope that our customers recognize the joy and happiness of our employees and that they can walk away knowing that their purchase wasn’t just buying ice cream or coffee,” she said. “It was helping someone learn a new skill and invest in their capabilities.”

Building the Business

Heintzelman’s business model came together with innovation at the forefront. When she was a graduate student in Lehigh’s instructional technology master’s program, Heintzelman said she remembered taking classes and skills developed in the classroom during a night course and implementing them the next day at Centennial.

This experiential learning and theory-to-practice structure inspired a model to replicate in a business. Get Joy will be open year-round and every day of the week, providing stability and routine for employees.

Another foundational element is the Get Joy team itself, made up of “Joy Makers,” “Junior Joy Mentors” and “Joy Mentors.” Heintzelman refers to the group as the “Joy Crew.”

Joy Makers are individuals with differing abilities supported by Junior Joy Mentors, high school students who are aspiring educators or considering the field of education, and Joy Mentors, current or retired educators ranging from special educators to occupational therapists to speech and language pathologists.

Through this framework, Heintzelman is actively bridging both the gap in opportunity for those with differing abilities and the gap in community surrounding them.

“It’s taking everything that you would be doing in a school environment and giving that same amount of support in a business,” Heintzelman said. “We’re surrounding our Joy Makers with people who fully understand their needs and providing a space where they can flourish.”

Creating Connection and Opportunity

While building a strong community within Get Joy, Heintzelman encourages others to broaden their perspectives and embrace the simple pleasure that believing in someone can bring.

“Sometimes it doesn’t look like being the best person that interviews at a job,” she said “Sometimes it looks like giving support and offering room for potential to shine through.”

Opportunity is a core value at Get Joy, along with belonging, community and connection. These values were built and reflected in her work at Centennial School and as an adjunct professor in the College of Education.

Heintzelman’s students in the College of Education have known about her long-time goal of becoming an entrepreneur. They continue to share requests for ice cream flavors and when they see Heintzelman out in the community, they are the first to ask how her small business is developing. Many of them have even made repeated visits to Get Joy’s soft openings.

“I think this really speaks to the community and supportive culture in the College of Education,” Heintzelman said. The Lehigh network across “all corners of campus and the Centennial family” has felt “amazing” as a new small business owner, she added.

It’s that kind of intention, curiosity and genuine relationship building that Heintzelman wants others to feel in the shop.

Heintzelman has hired 42 employees and has 30 applicants on deck, which she said emphasizes a real need. While hiring employees, Heintzelman didn’t utilize any traditional advertising—the word spread completely organically.

“It makes sense,” she added. “The statistics say nearly 80% of people with disabilities are unemployed.”

Serving Up a Sweet Life

Just like how she waited for the right moment to open Get Joy, Heintzelman said she likes to remind her students that experiences are out there and sometimes they have to think critically about their goals and then take deliberate steps to seek out their passions.

Mentoring future educators through her role as an affiliated faculty member holds invaluable meaning to Heintzelman, in part because of the mentors who encouraged her, such as Centennial School’s former director Michael George, current director Julie Fogt and elementary program coordinator Kelly Spradlin.

“They’ve helped me to see that there’s always room to build space for other people,” she said.

As the shop fills for soft openings, and coffees and cones are exchanged over the counter, Heintzelman sees countless expressions of gratitude. The reactions of parents, Heintzelman said, are the ones most profound.

“They watched as their child was given a diagnosis,” she said. “They’ve likely felt so many unknowns and one of those conversations might have been, ‘Where will my child work one day?’ One parent told me: ‘Most people dream of going to Disney World, but this is what I've dreamed of for my child.’”

Remaining in her roles at Centennial School and teaching in the College of Education while owning Get Joy, Heintzelman’s mindset is focused on giving to her community in every way she can. The smiles around her show that her impact is already felt.