A surcee is a thoughtful and unexpected gift.

It is a surprise. 

Generally speaking, it is not an expensive gift but rather a true representation of it being the thought that means the most rather than the item itself.

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It is a word of oral tradition and therefore does not have an official spelling.  You may find it spelled surcee (as we do) or surcie, surcy, sursee, cercie, searcy, sirsee, circi, or sircee - but they all mean the same thing. 

 

It is a term that has been preserved and passed down from generation to generation in the South Carolina Lowcountry.  Our Director of Programs, Rieppe, grew up in Charleston SC being surprised by her parents and grandparents when they would announce they had a surcee for her and her sisters.  It is a term that recognizes the receiver as being special for the simple fact that they are.

 

The naming of our farm as Surcee is meant to convey the fact that we are all special and can at any time, receive an unexpected gift from the farm - not from the farmers but from the land, the woods, the plants, and the animals who live there.

Why say a farm of "unexpected surprises" instead of "unexpected gifts"? 

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We, and likely you too, know the word surprise is unexpected by definition.  "Unexpected surprise" is redundant but we used the tag line "a farm of unexpected surprises" instead of "a farm of unexpected gifts" because we did not want anybody to mistake us for a seller of gifts.  We are the facilitators of the personal discoveries of gifts from nature; we do not provide the gifts, nature does.

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