Welcome to TD Lee Farms!

Updated: May 24, 2022

We were so lucky to have worked with Todd and Jessie Lee at their farm in Melvin, Illinois. Todd and Jessie Lee own TD Lee Farms and specialize in raising and selling quality beef. Todd and Jessie had the vision to create a space on their farm where people could come to buy local homegrown products. They sought us out to find a way to make this vision become a reality.

Meeting #1

We met with Todd and Jessie in January to plan for their opening event in April. At this meeting, we brainstormed ideas on how we could make an event that was family-friendly and exposed the community to their small business. We discussed a plan that would allow for an open house-style event that would all families to come and go as they pleased. We decided that it would be a good idea to create an activity for kids to do to see more of the farm. The activity we decided on was a scavenger hunt. We then discussed that having local vendors at the event would be important for the sense of

Photo credit: Melissa Z Photos https://www.melissazphotos.com/about

community they are wanting to provide and for the potential of The Mercantile to house some of those products.

The Mercantile would be available to guests to buy TD Lee Farms beef, eggs, spices, and more. Then we discussed the meal that would be free to anyone who came to check out the farm.

After the meeting

We went work! We began creating social media posts for Jessie to post on their social media announcing the grand opening of The Mercantile. We helped Jessie organize her local vendors and created individual social media posts to highlight each one of them. We then created fliers to post around town and in small businesses to advertise the event. We then created a layout for the farm, so that

we had an idea for an outdoor dining space and an indoor dining space. After that, we created a scavenger hunt card to be approved by Jessie at our next meeting.

Meeting #2

We caught back up with Jessie 2 weeks prior to the event. We met to discuss the layout of the event and the final details. During this meeting, we created the final layout for the event. We also finalized the scavenger hunt card and decided we needed to create a name

card for each vendor that was coming to the opening. During this final meeting, all details were finalized with Jessie and we were excited about the event!

The Grand Opening of The Mercantile

The event occurred at TD Lee Farms on April 23rd at 3:00 PM. Jessie and Todd were excited to share their homegrown products with the community and share their love for all things farm-raised. The Lees had an excellent turnout for their grand opening and were able to share their vision for their farm with the surrounding communities. We were able to attend as guests and loved participating in the scavenger hunt where we saw their cattle barn and chickens! We were extremely lucky to be a part of this event and can't wait to see what Todd and Jessie have in store for their next TD Lee Farms event.

Check out the pictures from the event below!