Sweet gesture: Dairy Queen giving away free cones today

Edina-based Dairy Queen is renewing its annual one-day giveaway of free cones of its signature vanilla soft ice cream.

The motive of Tuesday’s sweet “Free Cone Day” gesture by the dessert-based national fast food chain is to collect donations for Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals as part of the promotion at its U.S. locations.

Here are some asterisk-like details: Cone size is small, limit one to a customer, and mall outlets are not included.

Since 1984, the Dairy Queen system has raised more than $110 million for Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals in the United States and Canada.

The network assists 170 member hospitals that provide 32 million treatments each year. It has one Minnesota hospital in the network, Gillette Children’s Specialty Healthcare in St. Paul.