This letter is for maple program volunteers, but the information about how the program went in 2022 may be of interest to others.

Dear Maple Volunteers,

Maple season has come to a close, and we cannot thank you enough for all of your time, energy, enthusiasm, and guidance through the first Maple Education season since COVID. For most of our staff, this was our first Maple Season, and we could not have put this together without the guidance and leadership of the Friends of MacKenzie and our dedicated volunteers. So, from all of us, THANK YOU!!! We had so much fun putting this together, and are so glad that we got to be a part of this program.

To show our appreciation, we are excited to announce a Volunteer Thank You Barbecue, on Saturday, May 21^st, 2022.  We did not get the chance to thank you with food on clean-up day, but we’d love to see you in May for a day of fun and food! This event is possible thanks to the Friends of MacKenzie’s hard work and funds!

This year’s Maple Program exceeded our expectations in every way. With the bussing troubles, new variants, and general hesitation for field trips this year, we were not sure what to expect! But, after calling all of you, and on our Maple Call-In Day, we were blown away, and the season continued to surprise us. Maple 2022 brought in more students than many of our staff have seen since starting here! We also met so many people who care so much for MacKenzie and about Environmental Education, and are so grateful to everyone who made Maple so amazing. For those of you who like to see numbers, here are our stats from Maple 2022:

• 1,013 students came to Maple this year!
• Maple Fest drew 838 people!
• 54 Volunteers came together to make this happen!
• Those 54 Volunteers gave 2,095 hours total to the maple program, for an average of 38 hours per person!
• The volunteer with the most time, volunteered 99.25 hours of their time this year!
• In total, our students and guides tapped 102 trees, and a total of 113 trees were tapped this year!
• Over the season, over 1,800 gallons of sap were collected!
• The average sugar content of the sap was 4.0 % Brix, with a high of 4.7% on March 30^th!
• 337 Pints of MacKenzie Gold, in total, were produced.

Again, thank you all for such a wonderful season. Please save the date for May 21^st, when we will host our Volunteer Thank You Breakfast!

Sincerely,

The MacKenzie Center Staff and the Friends of MacKenzie