Cleveland neighborhood residents, Chaun Webster and Verna Wong, are launching a local bookstore, Ancestry Books, set to open in June at 2205 Lowry Avenue, next to the Lowry Café. This past month they launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise some of the initial funds for the store and were able to reach their goal in 13 days. This strong show of community support has encouraged them to try and reach a broader base of support through the end of the fundraiser on March 7.
As they note on their Kickstarter page, “Traditional funding models tend to minimize the potential of poor and working class communities to leverage their dollars for efforts like these. To say the least, we believe these models are wrong. There is so much beauty, light and power in North Minneapolis and we’d like to position this project as a new narrative, one that doesn’t center on deficiency.”
The bookstore will fill the space previously leased by The Goddess of Glass and Friends who recently moved to The Warren at 44th and Penn. Webster and Wong describe the need and value the bookstore will bring to the community on their page: “There is a scarcity of “third place” in North Minneapolis, third place being an idea of place that is outside of home and work where we build community, where we can relax, where we find a sense of belonging and where we can build power. At present, there is not a single bookstore in our community and this is where Ancestry Books comes in.”
The upcoming store and community fundraising through Kickstarter has been featured in City Pages, MN Daily, KFAI radio and Publishers Weekly, and with 313 current backers (individuals who have donated to the project) it certainly has the strong support pre-launch any new businesses needs to be successful.
“I see the bookstore partnering with schools and with other organizations to build the community up in the ways the community is already beautiful,” shared local teacher, Shana Dickson, on a recent video about what Ancestry Books will mean to the Twin Cities. Chaun and Verna have expressed a desire for their bookstore to be a collaborative partner and resource for local schools to find literature that contains a narrative that reflects the students in our neighborhood schools.
“For me, as a Cleveland resident, a great local bookstore is as nourishing as a great local restaurant and I don’t see how you can build community without the social ingredients of places like ancestry,” said DA Bullock, resident and local videographer.