Fenner Nature Center hosts its annual Maple Syrup Festival

Lansing’s Fenner Nature Center is putting on its annual Maple Syrup Festival Saturday.

The event has stations on how to tell when a tree is ready to be tapped and how maple syrup is made. Organizers are also serving maple themed treats such as maple cotton candy and cookies.

Alexa Seeger, the development and events director for the center, said the trees on site are 70 to 100 years old.

She adds maple syrup gathering has always been a community event.

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Visitors tapping for maple syrup at Fenner Nature Center's Maple Syrup Festival.

David Marvin / Fenner Nature Center

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A child lifting buckets used for tapping maple syrup at the Fenner Nature Center's Maple Syrup Festival.

David Marvin / Fenner Nature Center

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A group gathered to learn about sugar logging which is a process used to make maple syrup at the Fenner Nature Center's Maple Syrup Festival.

David Marvin / Fenner Nature Center

"We hope they feel welcome, feel like family so that they can just enjoy the camaraderie that comes with being out in the sugar bush," Seeger said.

Se says the festival helps educate the public and provide visitors with a unique experience.

"Where else you know in the city of Lansing can you go out to a sugar bush and learn how to boil your own maple syrup, tap trees all that fun stuff?" Seeger said.

The event serves as a fundraiser for the non-profit Fenner Conservancy which manages the center.