2Gather Meats & Market

We are the Eckardt and Van Roekel Families. We first met in 2021, when we (Zach and Stacie Eckardt) purchased our farm, just a couple miles south of Alvord, and needed a breeder for our cattle. Lance Van Roekel was recommended by several people, so we called him up and found out how much we have in common, we have been friends ever since. We decided to start this joint venture 2Gather in 2024, to bring high quality freezer meats to our community.

We, the Eckardt's, are 1st generation farmers, who worked for 10 years in various Ag industries before the Lord made our Dreams come true! We purchased our 40-acre farm in 2021 and moved our family to this beautiful new home. We have 4 children (Chris, Grayson, Laura, and Amelia) and are all learning together what it means to run a family farming operation. We produce corn for silage and custom feed cattle. We have a small chicken flock, a small cow/calf herd, 2 horses, and 2 Australian Shepherds used to work cattle. We joke that when you come to visit, we talk cattle and Jesus, but it's true, no matter how long you stay to visit, both topics come up in conversation. It's simply what we do, raise cattle and share Jesus.

As for the Van Roekel Family, Lance had first started buying his own cattle for showing and breeding a small herd in 2010. Lance and Katy married in 2011 and Lance continued to advance the herd through breeding the cows we had, and really enjoyed the calving and cow management. Lance went to AI school and training in 2016 and has been breeding his own and other’s cows for them since. He then expanded his education and was certified to install embryos in cattle in 2021 and we made the jump to start Lance’s dream business to install embryos for other people and calve out the cows for a live calf program. Lance also takes pride and joy in being able to plant, grow, chop and feed the majority of the feed ingredients that are carefully planned for our surrogate mother cows and calves. Lance and Katy also have three children and they enjoy helping and fixing on the farm.