NEW PARIS — Today’s Harvest is celebrating New Paris’ Bicentennial with its corn maze.
The popular maze will be open until November. The last day of business will be Tuesday, Oct. 31, where the farm will be hosting Trick or Treat through the maze, but the store itself is open all year long.
Today’s Harvest is a family-owned farm store that started as a single wagon in the 1970s. The wagon only sold sweet corn, until current owners Tom and Lisa Jordan started adding more vegetables. Over the years the store continues to grow and develop.
While the store is open all year long — featuring flowers, doughnuts, ice cream, and seasonal produce — the corn maze runs from the weekend after Labor Day through Halloween.
Rebecca Webb is the daughter of owners Tom and Lisa Jordan. While she does not have an official title, like all the Jordan children she works at the farm and store. She does handles most of the maze operations.
“The corn maze started in 2005. It was just another project that we had always had in the background of things, but we finally decided to do it,” Webb explained. “It was one of those things we thought we’d try and it ended up working. We wanted to be able to offer something that was family friendly and affordable for this area.”
The corn maze is professionally cut and designed by a company in Idaho. This year’s maze was cut in celebration of the New Paris’ Bicentennial. According to Webb, every year there is a large sponsor from the community. For the past two years it has been Southern Comfort Bar and Grill and RIM Technology, both located in New Paris.
“Every year it is a random design for the corn maze, but we try to include what is going on around us,” Webb said. “At the end of the year we harvest the field and all of the money we would get from the corn crop we actually donate to Children’s Hospital in Dayton. Hence why Children’s Miracle Network is a big part of the maze. Over the past roughly 10 years we have been able to donate $85,000 to them.”
Webb explained, they involve Children’s Hospital because of personal reasons. Her brother, William Jordan, has benefited from the care of the hospital. When he was born he spent some time in Children’s, and they still provide him with fantastic care.
As the corn maze is meant to be affordable, it is $7 for a one time entry or $10 for a season pass. Webb added, this enables people to find all of the markers over a period of time.
“Halloween is always our last night. This year we are going to do Trick or Treat. It will be our first time doing that. My goal is to be able to have kids come out and go through the Children’s Miracle Network section of the maze on a specific path and we can hand out candy at no charge. This will be during Trick or Treat hours,” she said.
