ANDERSONVILLE — The new owners of Women & Children First are asking the community for help revamping Andersonville's beloved feminist bookstore.
Last year, longtime store owners Linda Bubon and Ann Christopherson announced that they would sell the store — but only to buyers that would carry on the shop's feminist focus and keep the business as independent as it's been since it opened in 1979.
They found a match in store employees Lynn Mooney and Sarah Hollenbeck. Mooney, the store's manager, lives in Rogers Park and has a background in the publishing industry. Hollenbeck, of Edgewater, is a writer who performs on Chicago's live lit storytelling scene.
When the sale was announced in July, Mooney and Hollenbeck said they planned to remodel the store over the winter to add an event area for author readings and other public gatherings, among other changes. The new owners intend to create a space "that physically and philosophically invites spirited, respectful dialogue about feminism — what it was, what it is, and what it must become."
On Tuesday, the duo asked customers to help fund the renovation through Indiegogo.
"With the threat of online retailers and their tactics to undermine the work of authors and indie booksellers, there is a growing need to re-imagine how we use our brick-and-mortar space in order to affirm its importance," they say in the campaign.
Aside from the planned event area, they also hope to expand programming to include TEDx Talks, book-themed summer camps, writing salons, support groups and more. They would also like to host wedding showers or other events.
They hope to complete the renovations in January or February, and ask those who can't give money to spread the word — or to help with the physical renovation itself.
"We must offer experiences and relationships that can't be found virtually," Mooney and Hollenbeck write in the Indiegogo campaign. "If we aren't able to make our goal and fund the creation of a space that nourishes and sustains such experiences and relationships, all of us risk losing yet another feminist bookstore."
Watch the campaign video here:
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