At our last meeting Jessica Wells spoke about the official apple of the Buffalo Bills: Snap Dragon
Opening and Invocation led by Bob Bendix
Wellness Report – Pat Albrecht fell and broke her collar bone and is in great pain.
Guests: Malwina Plichta, Exchange Student; Marianne Arseneau, guest of Russ Harris; Steve Blowers - Corporate Member of ARC of Wayne
Announcements and Happy Moments:
- Malwina is excited to have gone to a Polish grocery store with her host parents, the Malachs, and is excited to have ingredients to make authentic pierogis
- Linda Werts - asking for donations:
- for Haitian refugee couple: Contact Linda with items you might be bringing.
- books - fiction or text books for books for the world
- donations for Newark Rotary Salutes the Hospital workers
- Wondering if anyone wants to travel to Mexico for the Tabí water project.
- Scott Healy - helped his daughter move to Florida, and played golf.
- Jeff Patchen will be going on a cruise next week.
- Reminder - we have a minimum for lunch purchases - Rotary is obligated to purchase 30 lunches each week - so please support Mary - we can also purchase the meals “to go” — makes a nice dinner for at home.
Birthdays: Steve Hallagan, Sharon San Angelo, June Crawford
Wedding Anniversaries: Gary & Norma, June Crawford and her husband, Steve Hassler and his wife
Rotary Anniversaries: Dave Johnson, Steve Mooney, Mike Muscalino, JJ Cotter, Kevin Mooney, Jean & Paul Salisbury, Sharon San Angelo, Deb Stokes, Gary Reilly, Dave Hannan, Art Williams
Queen of Hearts. Marianne Areseneau did not pick the Queen - the pot continues to grow.
Program: Steve Hallagan introduced our guest today, Jessica Wells - Crunch Time Apple Growers, Executive Director
Established in 2010 - to bring apples developed by Cornell Cooperative. Cornell stipulated that every grower in the state would be eligible to grow the varieties chosen.
Apple variety Ruby Frost is a cross between Braeburn and autumn crisp.
Snap Dragon is a Honey Crisp and NY 75.
When Snap Dragon first came out, the marketing was very grass roots — did sampling in grocery stores and farm markets. After a few years a marketing director was hired and expanded the marketing area — but it was a little too big too fast. Transitioned to an Executive Director and have re-focused on more of the grass roots effort — using with social media and with local stores. 
When Jessica is sending boxes of samples out she must curate her supply of apples to find only the most “perfect” ones. She started bringing “imperfect apples” to her track athletes (she is a coach for the Newark High School Track team) and they loved them. This spawned the idea to see if they could find high profile athletes to promote the Snap Dragon apples. Jessica has negotiated and became an official sponsor of the Buffalo Bills. She started preparing for how to do this. She began brainstorming different ways to promote this partnership with the Buffalo Bills. A benefit of partnership is you get to participate in “activation” activities. A couple of times a year they could “activate” on the “Billavard”. They created a mascot, “Snappy”. They cannot give out whole apples, so they have them sliced and packaged to give away at the games they have contracted to “activate”. 
Side tip: when you bake or cook with a sweet apple, they lose their flavor. Sweet apples are best for eating raw.
Jessica has done a great job branding the Snap Dragon as the “official apple of the Buffalo Bills”. Look for their advertising and merchandising — but most of all enjoy purchasing Snap Dragons. They are truly an amazing apple.
(Thank you to Russ Harris and Jeff Patchen for the photos taken during the meeting.)