The Great Big Crunch 2009 Media:
all the way from New Brunswick

An apple a day...

Monday February 16th, 2009

By Wendy Patterson
The Miramichi Leader

How do you like them apples? Well, District 16 students liked them just fine last week as they participated in a national challenge to encourage healthy eating.

Click here to see photos of The Great Big Crunch >>

In honour of Teacher Appreciation Week, a group of students from Ian Bailee Primary School kicked off the Great Big Crunch on Thursday by crunching with superintendent Laurie Keoughan and other district employees at the District 16 Schoolboard office, leading up to the official Crunch at 10:30 a.m.

Back at the school, there was a festive mood in the gymnasium, where row upon row of students and teachers had gathered with red, yellow and green apples in hand.

As principal Beth McCarthy led the assembly, kids and teachers counted down to the first big bite, when the entire school population crunched into their apples at the same time.

Before the children could completely devour their apples, McCarthy invited several students up to the front of the room to test their "crunch" against herself and other staff members.

One of them was Kindergarten student "Rockin" Robin Ross. "It was awesome," she said. "I won because I got a bigger crunch than Mrs. McCarthy.

"This is a delicious apple!" she added.

Ian Bailee Home and School president Anne Cook, who looked after organizing the event, said the challenge is usually done on March break, but they decided to do something different.

"We thought we would incorporate it into Teacher Appreciation Week," she explained.

Cook said she found out about the Crunch through an invitation that was sent to all the public schools in Canada, asking staff and students to participate. "I thought it would be great," she said.

Ian Bailee already does a lot to promote healthy lifestyle choices, she said. They work with the Mango program, and encourage kids to bring nutritious food in their lunches, since the school has no cafeteria. Cook is also in charge of the primary school's hot lunch program.

For the Great Big Crunch, each student was asked to bring an apple from home, with the Home and School Association providing apples for anyone who forgot.

Last year, Cook said, something like 26,000 people across Canada participated in the challenge. She wasn't sure yet how many were participating in this year's Crunch.