Happy Whole Grain Sampling Day! We spent most of the day today tooling around Boston in a commandeered Duck Boat, handing out whole grain samples to everyone we met. Duck boats attract attention even when they aren’t proclaiming Whole Grain Sampling Day, so you can imagine the attention we garnered with our special banners and t-shirts.

Here we are, at 7:15 this morning, getting our Duck Boat ready to roam the streets. While we were still packing up and tying the banners on, a bicyclist whizzed by shouting, “Where are my samples?” We invited him to double back and handed him a delicious blueberry muffin top from Muffintown. (That’s Roger Piffer, e-commerce Marketing Director at Muffintown, in the background.)

Before long, we were off and running. Here’s some of our first-shift crew (L to R): Joan Kelley, Mallory Cushman, Abby Sloane, Cynthia Harriman, Kyle Potvin and Rachel Greenstein. If you’re not close enough to read the t-shirts, they say “Every Day is Whole Grains Day.”

First stop, Copley Square, where we handed out more muffins to commuters on their way to work. People were pretty psyched to come up out of the subway and get a free muffin top.

From there, we traveled to Boston University, where Professor of Nutrition Joan Salge Blake had invited us to spread the word about whole grains. For a few minutes we were alone… and then classes ended, and we were swamped with hungry college students. Thank goodness we had tons of samples, including more muffins, Einkorn pasta from Jovial Foods, wild rice medleys from Goose Valley, crackers from Dr. Kracker and Mary’s Gone Crackers, and cookies and coupons from HomeFree.

At one point a city fire truck pulled up alongside us. We weren’t quite able to hand off samples to them in time before the light changed. We caught up at the next intersection, however, and that friendly firefighter reached out with his helmet, which we filled with whole grain samples for him and his crew. To even things out, we visited Boston Police Department headquarters later. When all was said and done, we had handed out every last one of our 4,200 samples!

We had to leave Sadie, our office dog, at home (she’d get too excited in the Duck Boat). But even she celebrated Whole Grain Sampling Day by dressing for the occasion (helped along by our president, Sara Baer-Sinnott).

What are you doing to celebrate Whole Grain Sampling Day? Click here to find out about other great WGSD events nationwide. (Cynthia)