46.0°,
A Few Clouds Supporting troops with food-filled baskets
Stew Leonard’s in East Meadow, was on a mission to help military families of those on active duty have a better Easter this year.
Operation Easter Basket was an effort that the grocery store came up with to help military families have special meal for the holiday. Local volunteers — Boy Scout Troop 362, members of Girl Scout Troop 1315, American Legion Post 1082 and Veterans of Foreign War Post 2736 — gathered on April 7 to help pack boxes, making it a true community effort.
“Our family loves to be part of the whole community,” Stew Leonard Jr., said. “From our hearts, we’re just really happy to do our little part in this community to make it a little better. And our heart just goes out to all the veterans and also the servicemen out there that are protecting this kind of freedom that we have in America.”
The boxes packed by the volunteers will feed over 200 people with food cooked by the store’s longtime chef John Muscarello. The completed boxes, filled with ham, mashed potatoes, roasted vegetables, green beans, snowball rolls, and apple pie, will be taken to the 1st Marine Corps District in Garden City. From there, they will be distributed to the families.
“Nassau County has one of the highest populations of veterans in the whole United States,” County Executive Bruce Blakeman said. “We’re proud of our veterans.”
Boy Scout Troop 362 Scoutmaster Andy Lindow said that this was a perfect activity for the young scouts to be involved in. The scouts ranged in age from 10 to 17.
“This gives them exposure to the community, so the community sees them actively participating in something,” he said. “(This event) symbolizes everything, coming together as a group, and as a family, organizing yourselves, helping out other people, feeding other people that need some help, and just meeting other people in your community.”
Leonard said that he used to be a scout himself, and he loves to see them involved.
“It sort of makes me go back to think of how special that was,” he said. “I think what’s sort of cool is these young kids and everything that are working so hard to honor and have good values and good work ethic.
“It’s just nice to see these young people embrace the real essence of life.”
The idea for Stew Leonard’s to help veterans isn’t a new one, according to Meghan Bell, the company’s director of public relations. One of the stores in Connecticut conducted a similar mission.
“It was just brought to our attention about food insecurity and the veterans,” Bell said. “We’re a family owned and operated business, we have veterans that work for us at Stew Leonard’s, and it was just sort of a light bulb moment that we could do our part and help get a hot meal on the table.”
Stew Leonard’s has a long history of giving back to each store’s home community. During the pandemic, the store prided itself on finding fresh food from around the country in order to keep the stores shelves stocked for its customers.
During Thanksgiving, the store gives away hundreds of turkeys at each of its locations to families in need.
When PSEG Long Island partnered with Island Harvest for its “Power to Feed Long Island” campaign, they were allowed to set up shop in the Stew Leonard’s parking lot.
Todd Weinstein, the founder and administrator of the Facebook page, “Nice things that happen in East Meadow” was the recipient of Stew Leonard’s generosity. On his 50th birthday, he received 50 cans, containers, or bags of pasta sauce, olive oil, beans and chicken broth for his birthday food collection efforts.
