Volume 3 | Issue 11
June 12, 2026
Grange saves community-favorite Maple Syrup Festival submitted by Megan Stang Big Knob Grange #2008 (PA)
Beaver County, our home county, has been hosting a Maple Syrup Festival at a local park for 45 years. This year, they made the announcement that it was canceled, which caused a lot of disappointment and frustration in our community. Quickly and quietly behind the scenes Big Knob Grange got to work to pull off our own Maple Syrup Festival. The idea felt like a natural fit for the Grange since the event is Volunteers served over 3,600 pancakes at the firstcommunity and local agriculture ever Big Knob Grange Maple Syrup Festival. focused. We host a few large Photo provided events such as an annual 5-day Fair, a KCBS sanctioned BBQ competition, and an annual Pancake Benefit Dinner on Shrove Tuesday, so we felt confident in being able to execute such an event. Plus, we have the grounds and space to host it. We worked for 2 weeks learning anything and everything we could about pancakes, sausage, and syrup. On February 18, 2026, the day after our Pancake Benefit Dinner, we made the public announcement that in just 60 days we would be hosting the first Big Knob Grange Maple Syrup Festival on April 18 & 19, 2026! It was a viral sensation. Within 48 hours our announcement post was shared on Facebook over 1,000 times and had 205,000 views on it. Within those 60 days, there were many late-night meetings walking step-by-step through the whole process, analyzing the quantity needed for all supplies, the number of volunteers needed, and the pancake-to-syrup ratio. Members sampled various breakfast sausages from a local butcher, researched pancake mix, and learned all about buckwheat flour, and maple syrup. We made the decision to purchase 40-gallon barrels of syrup and process/bottle it ourselves to serve at the festival and to sell bottles to take home. This led to getting inspected and licensed to sell maple syrup, then bottling over 200 gallons. We secured 70 handcraft vendors, ground our own buckwheat flour, booked four bands, lined up volunteers, hung banners, passed out flyers, ran gas lines for all the grills, were continued on page 2 interviewed by local newspapers and radio
A publication of the National Grange
In This Issue Grange saves community-favorite Maple Syrup Festival . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Fruitland Grange hosts Tea Party fundraiser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Grange Heirloom for June . . . . . . . . . . 3 Welcome to our Intern Team! . . . . . . . . 4 Spotlight: National Grange intern receives Public Service Award . . . . 4 Opinion: America’s Growing Energy Challenge Demands an All-of-theAbove Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Celebrate 160 in Broken Arrow . . . . . 6 Tell the Grange Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Celebrate America250 with the Grange . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Hamp Watch: Where is our National Grange President? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Recipes from the Heartland . . . . . . . . 9 Grange Member Benefit: Harvest Hosts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Grange Store: Veteran Recognition Pin . . . . . . . . . 10
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