Keystone College Hosts Sweet Maple Syrup Open House
Lackawanna Co. — The Sugar Shack Maple Syrup open house was open to the public to experience and learn the process of making maple syrup.
The open house originally scheduled Saturday was postponed due to inclement weather.
The Keystone College Environmental Education Institute’s Maple Sugaring students conducted the event.
“I just love seeing people excited about maple, about maple syrup and having a good time learning about it", Kelley Stewart said.
With the guidance of Kelley Stewart, Director of the woodlands campus and Keystone College Environmental Education Institute, The Sugar Shack is entirely student run.
The open house featured five stations that visitors could go to and learn about different parts of the process.
“There were a lot of younger people that came and they really had a lot of good questions that some of the adults didn’t even ask so, I really have loved talking to all the kids that have been here”, Julianna Symons, a student at the college, said.
A popular station was station number four where visitors were shown the process of boiling the sap into syrup. Visitors were also given warm syrup samples to taste.
The Keystone Sugar Shack usually produces between 40 to 60 gallons of maple syrup every year, going through around 1,600 to 3,600 gallons of tree sap.
Andy Hurchick who has attended this event in previous years tells us he always looks forward to the Open House.
“There’s more and more people coming out to see what they do here. It's a fascinating process, tapping the trees and boiling down the sap to get maple syrup. It’s fantastic", Hurchick said.
After visitors attended the open house, they were welcome to the school’s pavilion where they were able to obtain sticky sweet maple syrup treats like waffles served with homemade maple whipped cream and bottles of maple syrup.
To stay up to date with the Keystone College Environmental Education Institute's upcoming events visit their website.
