Our Inspiration
For my grandfather
Tony Key
Clarence Anthony “Tony” Key, Sr.
Carpenter. Neighbor. The man whose farm, laughter, and handiwork still live in every bar and wick we make.
Appalachian culture taught the importance of human connection, non-material goods, and a simple life full of laughter. People there folded the region’s natural beauty into the work of their hands. Through craftsmanship and homesteading, they lived out self-sufficiency, community, and pride in what they made.
The bonds he created with his neighbors were as strong as the joists in the houses he built.
The carpenter
My late grandfather embodied those values every day.
Making his living as a carpenter, Tony built everything from small carvings to grandiose farmhouses. No matter the scale, the work lasted. So did the people around it.
Autumn on the farm
Those were the happiest years of my life.
Every autumn, my brother, our cousins, and I spent hours in the backyard gathering pounds of pecans for my grandmother to sell. Whatever she couldn’t sell, she turned into praline candies. We’d pick leaves from his sassafras trees to make filé powder for gumbo, all the while sidestepping the ever-growing fire ant mounds.
- Pecans Gathered by the pound, then sold or stirred into pralines.
- Sassafras Leaves picked for filé, the thickener that makes a gumbo sing.
- Fire ants The small hazard of a good day outside.
The turning point
Work had started to feel like the opposite of the life he lived.
Tony Key passed away soon after my first child arrived. As I grappled with fatherhood and a career, I realized the life I was living ran antithetical to his. Devin and I worked jobs in a culture that demanded our time and energy for projects we felt no passion for. The most jarring part was the lack of ownership. We wanted to pass a love of knowledge to our children, but we were only learning what made us more marketable. Rather than live to work, we worked to live.
Why Sunshine Farms exists
We needed something that belonged to us—and to him.
For years this was a steady conversation between me and my brother. Plenty of friends and family felt the same disillusionment after the promised future of studying hard and getting into good schools never quite arrived. We may not be in a position to quit our nine-to-fives, but we believe happiness looks like making something that frees us from those constraints and, more importantly, carries the values our grandfather instilled.
My brother inherited Tony’s carpentry and turned his garage into a woodshop. Devin and I chose scent—its power to bring a place rushing back.
We hope this business encourages others to find their spark, and to recognize the beauty in ordinary life. Each product carries a piece of my childhood and my grandfather’s influence. I hope you can find some joy in them, as I once did.
— Ronald Porch II