A Lewiston woman who founded a bath products company when she needed gentle skin supplies for her infant with complex medical needs will join other vendors for a weekly market this holiday season.
Jessi McLean, who owns G&E Spa Essentials with her husband, Jeremy, said via Facebook Messenger they decided to start the LCV Saturday Market “to give the Valley quality, local products to shop from for gifts, as our shopping options have become limited.”
Set to run 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Oct. 1 to Dec. 17 at Woodland Adventures, 204 Thain Road, in Lewiston, the market includes a rotating slate of participants, with as many as 10 each week, selling items such as home decor, USDA beef, resin art, graphic tees, freeze-dried candy and fruit, fresh baked goods, bath and body products, and candles.
A coffee vendor, Lil Manz Donuts or Leaded Rose Coffee, will be on hand each week as well.
Attendees can have professional photos taken, with autumn and Halloween themes in October and with Santa in November and December.
Woodland Adventures, a day care owned by Kirby and Charli Ockwell, “will be transformed every Saturday” into the market space, McLean said, noting the Ockwells, who both grew up in the Lewiston-Clarkston Valley, were eager to support other local businesses.
The McLeans started G&E Essentials in May 2021, after she perfected bath product recipes for their daughters, whose initials are G and E. Their youngest daughter’s health issues, which required a gastrostomy feeding tube and, later, open heart surgery, meant she needed particularly gentle bathing products and creams.
When navigating the medical needs of her high-risk baby while working as a middle school teacher became untenable, she focused on what she could control: creating bath and body products, said McLean, who took this school year off “to focus on creating, healing and her family.”
