Consumers Energy Supports Maple Syrup Festival Saturday with Volunteers, Community Grant
Volunteers Flip Flapjacks, Serve Refreshments and Help with Demonstrations
WASHINGTON, D.C. – (RealEstateRama) — About 40 volunteers from Consumers Energy joined with the Fenner Nature Center Saturday to give visitors a taste of how real maple syrup is made and used.
The Consumers Energy Foundation also contributed $500 to the Center to recognize company employees for helping fulfill a Promise to care for Michigan communities by actively supporting Fenner Nature Center’s annual Maple Syrup Festival.
“The Maple Syrup Festival is always a great connection between the natural world we love to put on display at Fenner and the residents of mid-Michigan,” said Scott McPhail, with regulatory affairs at Consumers Energy and Fenner Nature Center board member. “This year’s festival was especially thrilling as it brought together two organizations I’m very enthusiastic about – Fenner Nature Center and Consumers Energy — to focus on a shared goal of enhancing our community.”
The volunteers from Consumers Energy assisted with featured maple syrup making demonstrations during two shifts at the festival, including tapping trees, sap boiling, and Native American tools and techniques. They also assisted with parking, serving flapjacks and showing how maple syrup is used to make treats such as cotton candy.
The Consumers Energy Foundation contributed a Caring for Community grant for each of the two shifts employees volunteered during the festival, for a total of $500 to the non-profit nature center to encourage and support volunteerism by Consumers Energy employees
.
“Consumers Energy today went above and beyond what it means to be a good corporate neighbor,” said Liz Roxberry, executive director of the Fenner Nature Center. “I am happy and very thankful for their corporate sponsorship of our event and to accept the grants from their foundation. I cannot say enough either about the value the volunteers from Consumers Energy added to making this year’s Maple Syrup Festival a resounding success.”
The Consumers Energy Foundation is the philanthropic arm of Consumers Energy. It provides funding for a variety of areas including education, community, civic and cultural development, social services, the environment, and emerging issues.
Michigan nonprofit organizations received more than $6.5 million in contributions in 2015 from Consumers Energy, its employees, retirees, its foundation and the utility’s parent company, CMS Energy. For more information about the Consumers Energy Foundation, visit www.consumersenergy.com/foundation.
Consumers Energy, Michigan’s largest utility, is the principal subsidiary of CMS Energy (NYSE: CMS), providing natural gas and electricity to 6.7 million of the state’s 10 million residents in all 68 Lower Peninsula counties.
Fenner Nature Center is an environmental education center encompassing 134 acres. Run by the non-profit Fenner Conservancy, the property includes over four miles of trails, including two handicap-accessible paved trail loops. Inside the Visitor Center is a collection of live, native reptiles and amphibians; watch songbirds, deer and wild turkeys through a large picture window; and explore hands-on children’s exhibits.
Media Contacts:
Terry DeDoes (Consumers Energy), 517-374-2159
Liz Roxberry (Fenner Nature Center) 517-483-4224
For more information about Consumers Energy, go to www.ConsumersEnergy.com.
