My first jam sale!

My first jam sale!

I grew up in a canning and preserving family on the Southern Oregon Coast.  I loved my mom’s canned peaches the best- no matter how much she made each year; they never lasted through the winter! 

               In 2002, I graduated from University of Oregon and left Oregon for Los Angeles.  I taught elementary school in South Central LA through the Teach for America program.  While there, I met my husband, Tom.  I persuaded him to move back to Oregon with me to pursue the “simple life.”

               During the summers, Tom and I would make weekly excursions to Sauvie Island to hike and kayak.  No trip was complete without a stop at the farm stores.  I always ended up buying more produce than I could use fresh, so I went back to my roots—canning.  The preserving fit in nicely with the nesting I was doing in preparation for the birth of our daughter.  I went crazy canning anything I could stuff in a jar!

Our daughter, Evi, was born in early 2010.  By then, I had amassed hundreds of jars of jams, pickles and more.  We ate them and gave them as gifts.  Soon though, while giving out my new creation of Raspberry Lemon jam, friends and family consistently told me, “You should sell this!”

               It is with that sentiment that I started MeeMee’s Goodies.  BTW, “MeeMee” is the first way that Evi called for me.  (Tom was DeeDee and Evi, to us, was WeeWee.  No teasing!)

               I started small by making a couple of batches of jam every now in my home kitchen.  It was easy to work around the baby’s schedule in that way.  From there, I started doing small craft fairs in the Beaverton area.  I loved introducing people to my jams and becoming a delicious and nutritious part of their meals.  I loved talking about and sampling out the “fruits” of my labor!

               Now, I am challenged with growing my business, yet maintaining my founding ideals of using simple ingredients to make a simply delicious product.   Even though I can make 200+ jars at a time in a huge steam kettle, an am looking for retail opportunities outside of the farmer’s markets, I want to keep the business personal and personable.