Sweet Maple Festival taking over Georgian College this weekend

Three bottles of maple syrup produced at Georgian College in Barrie shown on Fri. April 12, 2024 (Chris Garry/CTV News Barrie).

Some familiar faces will be serving up pancakes at Georgian College, all for a good cause on Saturday.

For the first time, students in the school's events management program are hosting a Sweet Maple Syrup Festival. The event will begin with a tasty pancake breakfast featuring locally produced maple syrup.

• Download the CTV News app to get local alerts on your device
• Get the latest local updates sent to your email inbox

In addition to the breakfast, there will be activities for kids and more than 30 local artisans participating in a vendor market.

Proceeds from the event will go towards the Barrie Food Bank and the Georgian Food Locker, with a bin on site to collect non-perishable food items as well.

"We were looking at trying to come up with an event that was really community-oriented," said student Rachel Sedore. "Our group has a bunch of different skills and preferences and kind of interests in the event industry so we wanted to come up with an event that kind of encompassed all of that."

The first-ever event will also feature some familiar faces taking part, including Georgian College president Kevin Weaver, Barrie Police Chief Rich Johnston and local politicians.

Some locally-based maple syrup producers will be on hand with their products. But there will also be an opportunity to learn about Georgian College's annual process of producing syrup.

"There is an interactive touring trail outside of the M building, so just outside of where the festival's taking place," said Sedore. "On the trees there is sort of nice and easy signage that guests can read and they can learn about the process of how we make maple syrup here at Georgian."

The breakfast starts at 9 a.m., and the event wraps up at approximately 4 p.m. Tickets can be purchased online or at the door.