Maple Boil 2026: Thank You, Community!

To all of the wonderful attendees, volunteers, and community partners who came out to the Maple Boil on March 7: Wow - what a day, and what a turnout! We hosted more than 1,000 visitors and earned more than $1200 in donations and bake sale purchases.

Our finishing team produced just under three gallons of maple syrup. But the day was about so much more than syrup - community togetherness, nature education and fun were what it was all about.

Many special thanks go out to Barrett Tree Service East, our 2026 sponsor! Barrett believes strongly in giving back to the community, and supporting the health and care of all of our trees. We appreciate their contribution just as much as we appreciate the contributions that trees make in our lives: Supplying our environment with oxygen, improving air quality, conserving water, preserving soil, providing homes for and supporting wildlife - and supplying us with beautiful, sweet sap!

We had upwards of 70 volunteers help us collect and transport sap, prep the site, and run the Maple Boil event itself. Plus ten bakers who provided goodies for the Bake Sale, and our Snow Team which worked tirelessly all of February to remove snow! BUT we especially need to thank Phoebe Grupper, Bob Santosuosso, Travis McGrath, Spencer Albin, Mica Weld and Lisa Brukilacchio! And thanks to Paula Jordan, Growing Center Site Coordinator and Children in Nature Initiative Coordinator, for all of her time, outreach work and expertise.

My deepest gratitude to Anna-Celestrya Carr of the Somerville Museum for sharing Indigenous storytelling (and Stephanie Marlin-Curiel for tabling).

Thanks to Gaining Ground farm for providing firewood; Aeronaut Brewing Company and the Somerville Homeless Coalition's Project Soup for sap storage; Bob Shane of Shane Signs for providing syrup labels free of charge; Ben Davies and his class from Tufts University's Environmental Studies department for assistance with tree tapping and data collection, and collaborations with Maureen Quigley and her Environmental Studies class from Somerville High School; Farrington Nature Linc's middle school youth program with Healey & East Somerville Community School students which resulted in a beautiful Maple Boil poster; and Connexion for kitchen use for the syrup finishing process!

Thanks also to Jen Clifford from Earthwise Aware for training and support on health/phenology data collection of the maple trees; Somerville Family Learning Collaborative (SFLC) Playgroups and especially new Growing Center Board Member Kristin for coordinating and hosting a playgroup during the educational boil, and Dandelion Montessori for snow removal help!

And thank you to Mystic River Watershed Association, Groundwork Somerville and the Urban Pastorals Project headed by the Brandeis University English Department's Tom King - a Growing Center volunteer - for community tabling at the boil!

Stay tuned for exciting programs this spring as the snow melts and the plants wake up! Small of finished maple syrup bottles will be distributed as tokens of volunteer and community partner appreciation! Some will also be distributed at next year's Annual Meeting in January.

-Julia Halm, Somerville Maple Syrup Project Coordinator

maple@thegrowingcenter.org