Cari Sanders (Blackstock) shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.
Good morning Cari, we’re so happy to have you here with us and we’d love to explore your story and how you think about life and legacy and so much more. So let’s start with a question we often ask: What is something outside of work that is bringing you joy lately?
Owning the sign shop has afforded me the ability to chase other passions. I am able to pursue my community and volunteer efforts, but I am also able to teach swimming lessons in the afternoons to our local island kids. Seeing our kids learn how to swim, has got to be one of my greatest joys.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
Last time we met, my name was Cari Sanders, and it still is, but I am working on changing it after marrying my long time partner, Daniel back in May! Both Louisiana natives soaking up the island life. Vital Signs, our sign and print shop in Key Largo, is still going strong! We work every single day to streamline our services, continue to grow, and stay active in the community. We have done some of our company’s largest projects to date since we last talked, and it has been such a learning experience juggling multiple large scale projects at once. It is now the fall so our office manager and designer extraordinaire, Emmily, has been pumping out the senior and sports banners along with apparel added to her regular daily responsibilities. I am still teaching swim almost everyday along with planning the 16th Annual Light Up Key Largo with my board from the KLCPF. The nuances of living on an island are never lost on me. I founded and chair The Friends of the Upper Keys Unincorporated Monroe County Parks & Beaches non profit and we are actively growing and finding our footing in this community as well! It’s been busy, busy and I am thankful for every minute!
Amazing, so let’s take a moment to go back in time. What relationship most shaped how you see yourself?
I love this question and talk about it often in my personal life. There is more than one but they all intertwine to create the person you see today. In my late teens I met Julius. Ju took me under his wing and introduced me to my first community. Though our weekly visits happen via a phone screen now, we love to reminisce about the many hours we sat in his yard playing dominoes and listening to the old timers telling us their life stories. I may not have looked like them, but they loved me nonetheless and that opened my eyes & heart to understanding how to truly love thy neighbor. Next in my early 20’s I met Christian. She and I were forced to work together after I made a snide comment about her being “too perky”. We worked alongside each other that day and you never saw one without the other after. Christian and I are still extremely close and make the trip back and forth multiple times a year to see each other along with Facetiming everyday. Christian taught me a lot about how to open my heart to others and communicate effectively. (Fun sidebar- she married Daniel and me!) And with that is my loving husband, Daniel. Daniel taught me how to be gentle. One of the first weeks we were dating, there was a big spider in his living room. Through my shrieking to kill it, he gently lifted it onto a paper, set it outside, and bid it a farewell. I knew in that moment that I loved that man, and he has continued to show me how to treat the world like he treated that spider.
If you could say one kind thing to your younger self, what would it be?
I would tell my younger self to be kinder to myself, which I think a lot of us would say. And I think that it’s an important reminder to live it today. We are all too hard on ourselves and take ourselves too seriously at times. No one is critiquing you like you’re critiquing you.
Alright, so if you are open to it, let’s explore some philosophical questions that touch on your values and worldview. What would your closest friends say really matters to you?
I think they would say that being there for others or being in service of others really matters to me. I would like to think they would say I’m dependable and always ready and willing to give 110%. I would hope they would say that I’m being unapologetically true to myself as that has been something I’ve worked on really hard on in my adult life. And I hope they would say how much it matters to me that they know I love them. I never ever leave a room or hang up the phone without saying it.
Okay, so let’s keep going with one more question that means a lot to us: Are you doing what you were born to do—or what you were told to do?
I’d like to believe that every choice I have made in my life has led me to be doing exactly what I was born to do. I tried doing what I was told, but I just never fit into that mold. My mom, the best ever by the way, wanted me to go to college. She didn’t care what I did afterwards, she just wanted me to have an education. I got about three years in and I just couldn’t do it anymore. I loathed it and I had no clue what I wanted to commit to for the rest of my life. After I left college, I bounced around from all kinds of jobs. I wanted to try everything! And though a job didn’t bring me to these islands, I know that the choices of following my heart, if not always my brain, led me right where I was born to be.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.vitalsignskeylargo.net/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/signs_vital/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KeyLargoVitalSigns/
