My (Kaleb's) father Anthony got into the ice business in the late 80's. He started his business bagging his own ice in the back of my grandfathers store in Jones Chapel, AL. Eventually he grew his business enough that he started buying ice from bigger ice companies to meet demand.

He eventually went to work for the bigger company which was bought out by another company which was bought out by another until Reddy Ice acquired the business. AJ's Ice was a distributor for Reddy Ice until the business was sold in 2015.

I spent my childhood going to work with my dad, grandpaw, uncle, and whoever needed help on the ice routes. I can remember being a kid and wanting so badly to ride in the big truck with dad. Even though we were working it didn't feel like work to me I always just enjoyed going out riding the route seeing the sites and stores. I worked in the ice business from the time I was able to throw a bag of ice until we sold the business in 2015.

For the past 5 years I worked and wasn't truly happy with with any job I took. I had heard that the service the bigger ice companies where providing wasn't the greatest. Multiple convenience store owners had complained to dad and me over the years saying they were getting poor service.

So I began thinking, I really enjoyed the ice business and I am at a point in life that I would rather work doing something I enjoy than work a job that I'm not happy in.

Thankfully my wife had just graduated as a nurse practitioner and has a great job so I was able to pursue my dream without putting our family at risk. So in early 2019 I made the decision to try to get back in slowly....

"I'm just going to do events"

That's what I was telling people, but that lasted a hot second. As soon as word got out I started getting calls and messages. People wanting ice boxes at their store or location. So I quickly went from getting in slowly to all in. And there you have it a condensed backstory of how KJ's Ice came to be.

As you can tell it doesn’t have much to do with ice.

There is a man and a woman standing next to a well. As you probably deduced from seeing and reading John 4:13-14 the logo represents Jesus and the woman at the well.

So why is that your company logo?

Before I (Kaleb) met my wife Jada she had been praying about her future spouse. She felt that God was speaking to her through John chapter 4 telling her that her husband had something to do with water. Jada had never met me didn’t know anything about me.

My cousin had recently became the children’s minister at Jadas church and his family set me and Jada up on a blind date. I had often felt the urge to visit this church because I was searching for a church at that time. I never visited before I met Jada, but God didn’t let that derail his plan.

On our fourth date Jada had just had a really rough day so I decided to show her what I did for a living.

I took her to the spring where I bottled water. As soon as she saw it she exclaimed “is that a well?!” I said yeah somewhat, it’s a natural spring. Her demeanor obviously changed and I had no clue what was going on.

So she knew at that point that I was who God was telling her about.

I was fairly certain at that point that I was going to marry her but I didn’t know the backstory.

Just a glimpse into what we call God winks in our story....

We are not 100% sure but there is a good possibility Jadas mother was at the hospital the day I was born as she was working as a labor and delivery nurse.

When I was around 3-4 Jadas great uncle built a porch on my grandparents house and taught me how to drive a nail into wood.

When I was a teenager delivering ice boxes to the Hartselle band boosters not knowing we were dealing with my future mother in law and her best friend.

Feeling a strange sense of peace every time I drove through Hartselle.

Eating at the Chinese restaurant that is literally 100yds away from Jadas house.

We were visiting my grandfather’s gravesite one day and Jada happened to notice on the next row of headstones a few Whitaker’s which is her maiden name. She said “oh gosh I hope we aren’t related” lol we aren’t if you were wondering.

One that is special to me is that my grandfather’s favorite song is There is a river .... which talks about what? You guessed it Jesus and the woman at the well!

So if you take nothing else away from this, know from our story that we rarely know what God is doing in the moment, but he is in total control from beginning to end.