By 2026, Robin Rinearson’s two Fairfax County businesses have become more than neighbourhood food shops, they have become workplaces where people with disabilities can build skills, confidence and independence. When retired optometrist Robin Rinearson opened Jake’s Ice Cream in Virginia in 2021, her goal was not simply to sell scoops of ice cream. Five years later, that small idea has grown into two businesses employing 35 people, 24 at Jake’s Ice Cream and 11 at Jake’s Gourmet Popcorn. The story was reported by local news outlet FFXnow after Fairfax County supervisors recognised Rinearson on August 25 for her inclusive hiring practices. Earlier this summer, the Professional Baseball Athletic Trainers Society (PBATS) also named her a 2026 Ability Transcends Challenges Award recipient.
Rinearson now says she has a waiting list of people hoping to work there. She wanted to create something she felt was missing: meaningful, long-term employment opportunities for people with disabilities.
Jake’s Ice Cream, located in the Barcroft Plaza Shopping Center in Lincolnia, now has 24 employees. Eleven people work there, bringing the combined workforce of the two businesses to 35.
The result, she said, is unusual for a small business: there is a waiting list of prospective employees. The business was followed by Jake’s Gourmet Popcorn, which opened three years ago at Seven Corners Shopping Center. For Rinearson, however, the number of employees is only part of the story. Many of her workers stay for years and often recommend the jobs to friends.
In 2022, she described the business as a place where employees could receive meaningful, year-round work rather than simply seasonal employment. In July 2026, PBATS selected Jake’s Gourmet Popcorn and Jake’s Ice Cream as its Washington, DC-area recipient of the Ability Transcends Challenges Award. In 2026, PBATS expanded the awards to include one organisation in each of the 30 MLB cities, with the National Down Syndrome Society as a partner and support from the US Department of Labor’s Office of Disability Employment Policy.
The approach is also consistent with what Rinearson has said about the shop in earlier interviews. PBATS president Nick Kenney said the programme is built around the idea that opportunity, support and inclusion should extend beyond sport and into communities and workplaces. Rinearson does not view the stores simply as places where employees can spend their working lives. The skills they learn, from serving customers and handling food to working as part of a team and completing workplace responsibilities, can potentially help them pursue other employment opportunities. Fairfax County’s proclamation similarly highlighted the businesses for strengthening employees’ independence, developing workplace skills and helping create a more inclusive community. The annual programme recognises businesses committed to disability inclusion and employment. For Rinearson, that philosophy has played out behind an ice-cream counter and inside a popcorn shop. What began as a way to make sure people like her nephew had somewhere to work has become a small local employment ecosystem, one where the unusual problem is no longer finding people who want the jobs, but having more people waiting for a chance to get one.