The Sweet Flow of Maple – from One Generation to the Next

While the Hershey Montessori School’s 200-year-old sugarhouse was donated, dismantled, and reconstructed on the Huntsburg Campus in 2021, it wasn’t until this Spring 2023 that the sugarhouse would have its own maple syrup system.

Thanks to Martin Chabot, General Manager, and Jerad Sutton, Ohio Sales Representative, at CDL Sugaring Equipment, the students at the Huntsburg Campus, guided by HMS faculty Natalie Hudak, now have an 18” x 48” wood evaporator to learn the process, science, history, and fun of making their own maple syrup.     

Butternut Maple Farm, Sugar Pines Farm, GTP Plumbing, Valley Hardwoods, and numerous other volunteers also contributed equipment, labor, and expertise. These donors are multi-generational maple syrup producers here in Northeast Ohio. Their reason for donating is to pass along their knowledge, passion, joy, and respect for the earth that comes from making pure maple syrup.

Thanks to these generous maple syrup producers and their forefathers, our students today have an opportunity to nurture their connection to the earth and carry on the historic art of making maple syrup.