History of the Maple Syrup Festival
The
first Paris Lions Club’s Maple Syrup Festival was held on April 14, 2012. Lion
Dan Moore, now deceased, was inspired to organize this event. He reasoned that,
after seeing how another Maple Syrup Festival drew such huge crowds, the
Club’s Food Truck could be used as the primary fund raiser for our own Maple
Syrup Festival, making and selling pancakes with REAL maple syrup!!
This first Maple Syrup Festival was
located on William Street, between Broadway and Grand River Streets. It included
our Food Truck plus vendors who sold a wide range of products. Dan Moore hoped
attendance to this exciting event would be between 500 and 1000 people. Little
did he know how big this event would grow!!
The Maple Syrup Festival of 2013 drew even
more visitors to our town. The number of attending sponsors grew along with the
number of pancake breakfasts served. Records show that 68 kilograms of pancake
mix (our Lions Club secret recipe) and 80 litres of maple syrup were served and
enjoyed. With sponsor donations, support from the county of Brant and the local
BIA, The Festival was a resounding success!
2014 saw the need for more space for our
Maple Syrup Festival so it was moved to
our main downtown street, Grand River Street, between William and Mechanic
Streets. The parking lot behind the main street was used for more vendors as
the number of vendors increased along with number of visitors coming to this
event. This was also the year that entertainment was added to our Maple Syrup
Festival making it an even more successful event!!!
To demonstrate how much preparation is
required for such an event, the following list shows the variety of
responsibilities required to successfully make this event a reality:
Event Chairman
Food Event Organizer
Vendors Organizer
Sponsor Organizer
Event Set Up Organizer
Man Power Organizer
Entertainment Organizer
Advertising
Local Business Donations
Each of these responsibilities required
many members plus hours of manpower and dedication. Our Paris Lions Club met
all the challenges involved in hosting such a big event with enthusiasm,
knowing that all their efforts would improve the health and well-being of our
community.
The Maple Syrup Festival continued to
grow through the following years, increasing the number of vendors, number of
breakfasts served and a huge increase in visitor attendance. Due to inclement
weather, the Festival experienced lower visitor
attendance some years, but local citizens stepped up to support our Club by
ordering breakfasts and driving downtown to pick them up.....our very first
Maple Syrup “drive-thru” system!!
The year 2019 saw between 5000 and 6000
people attend our Maple Syrup Festival.
One can only imagine how many pancakes were made that year!!
2020 created its own reality as the
wide-reaching impact of Covid-19 affected lives everywhere. Our Maple Syrup
Festival was wisely cancelled, even though all the planning had occurred. The
same situation happened in 2021. Your Paris Lions Club, was not deterred by
Covid 19, rather it became more creative by setting up and still running an
online fund-raiser, namely our “Catch the Ace” draw.
In 2022, with declining Covid 19 cases, the Paris Lions Club decided to truly embrace the concept of “drive-thru” dining by making and
selling pancake breakfasts and/or bottles of maple syrup from its Food Truck at
the Paris Fairgrounds.
Thank you for your continued support!
