An apple a day

On Tuesday I met a great guy. He's a celeb of sorts in the Connecticut-New York area.
His name is Stew Leonard Jr. and he is president and CEO of Stew Leonard's, a small chain of food stores around these parts. His father, Stew Sr., opened the first one in 1969.
Leonard visited an elementary school to help our local hospital's parish nursing and community outreach to program kick off a healthy eating initiative. And I covered the press conference and the subsequent fun visit to a second grade classroom.
Leonard has written a children's story book, The Healthy Way, with Meghan Flynn, a registered dietitian, to teach kids good eating and exercise habits.
All proceeds from the book go to Stew Leonard III Children's Charities Foundation.
Leonard donated 5,000 copies to the parish nurse program, which does outreach in many area schools. He read the book aloud to the children and they were quite enthused about the whole visit. They clearly had been taught about nutrition and exercise already, and this just reinforced the lessons.
When I asked the kids afterward what they learned, one boy told me, "I have really strong teeth because I eat lots of apples. My favorite fruit is either bananas or cherries."
What a perfect age...second grade.
For a treat the kids each got a Gala apple. The grownups got one too! Yum.
Anyone for an apple?