OFI 1973: Adding Enterprises For Diversification | FFA SAE Edition | Mercedes Jones | Wessington Springs High School FFA

Mercedes Jones is her chapter's historian and her district's sentinel, and she is only in her sophomore year of high school!  She is also the recipient of a $1,000 SAE grant for a flower business that she has been launch with her family on their farm in South Dakota.

Mercedes is in a unique position with both of her parents being full-time farmers.  This is the life that she has known since she was four years old and her family moved to the multi-generational farm and both of her parents left their city jobs to devote all of their time here.  Mercedes is learning that maintaining this lifestyle with revenue that is produced exclusively from the farm is a challenge, and it takes innovation and hard work to meet that challenge.  As a result, she and her family are in the development process of adding flowers as a crop on their farm, and developing their "direct to consumer" business model.  She has already become an expert in varieties of flowers as well as planting and preservation methods, and there is no doubt why she was awarded the grant.