Local StoriesJune 29, 2023

Conversations with Amy & Mary-ann Jacobs

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to Amy & Mary-ann Jacobs.

Hi Amy & Mary-ann, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
We are sisters and own and run our farm together. It really has become a family endeavor. Our significant others and nana are constantly helping and around for pretty much every Goat Yoga event.

We host Goat Yoga around Savannah, South Carolina, and classes at the farm. We also host private classes for every occasion; most often bachelorette parties and a few corporate events.

Our journey began with Mary-ann wanting a single goat for her 18th birthday, almost 4 years ago. Our love for goats grew quickly! We soon realized that one was not enough and were expanding pens and goat houses before we knew it. We just recently purchased our dream farm of almost 18 acres.

We currently make goat milk soap and lotion and soy wax candles. We are starting to branch into other products and soon hope to start hosting soap and candle-making classes.

We just got our farm shop up and running with extended store hours coming soon! We named our shop after our recently passed papa; Jake’s General Store. Our papa was one of our biggest supporters and love getting to honor him through our shop.

We have expanded our farm to include pigs, rabbits, ducks, donkeys, chickens, and one crazy spunky little mini pony.

We push and inspire each other every day to be the best we possibly can be. We keep the farm running while also working and going to school full-time.

Amy is an Event Manager at a large resort and Mary-ann is going to school full-time to be a Master Cosmetologist.

We hope to own our own wedding and events venue one day.

Our family is our biggest support system.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
We started our farm on our dad’s property in 2019. Due to major development in the area in 2021, we had to quickly uproot our animals and them to our Nana’s house. We made it work but it wasn’t the easiest as she lived an hour out of Savannah where we were living at the time. We now have our beautiful 18 acres with a barn, shop, farm shop, pastures and plenty of goat houses.

In true sister fashion, especially being right and half years apart, we often disagree and may have the occasional disagreement but we quickly make up and come to a happy solution that will further advance the farm and business.

We lost our papa in April 2022 and our world shattered around us. He was always a supportive and guiding voice and it’s so hard without him being here. Our papa’s tractor was stolen from us while it was being stored during the move. We posted our story to Facebook and it was shared several hundred times and it made its way back home. The tractor originally belong to our great grand daddy and papa rebuilt it and gifted it to our dad and now is an essential piece of equipment to our farm.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?

We are definitely known for Goat Yoga and starting to make a name for ourselves. We constantly have people tell us that they don’t know how we do it. We have Goat Yoga almost every Saturday and still keep up with our regular full-time lives. We work together to make sure everything is getting done; we wouldn’t be able to do it without each other and our family. We started this business by ourselves with little to no help and have made it into a relatively successful business and hope to continue to grow and make it our full time business! We started with Goat Yoga, then branched into products, and soon hope to start soap and candle making classes! We also hope to start offering movies in the back field with hay bale seats and newly released movies. By the end of the year we hope to also start hosting weekly farmer’s/maker’s markets.

What does success mean to you?

Setting a goal and reaching it and persevering even when things get hard. We have several friends and even family that think we’re a little crazy for all these goals and dreams we hope to accomplish. We continue to push and work towards our dreams even when the moral or physical support is low. The feeling of doing a job well done after a big yoga class or beating a personal record day in sales of our products is what success feels like to us. We’re doing really well so far and hope to continue on this path and always strive to do the best we possibly can.

Contact Info:

Website: littlejsfarm.com
Instagram: https://instagram.com/littlejsfarm?igshid=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LittleJsFarmandStore?mibextid=LQQJ4d

Image Credits
Diane Dodd Photography

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