Inching our way to the starting line

This week we officially kicked off construction to renovate the 19th-century brick church that will be home to Lille Bønne. It’s taken over two and a half years to go from an idea to this, and still a bit more time until our doors are open. A lot has changed in those 30 months. 2023 felt like a time to return to each other and to decency; to course-correct for the cognitive dissonance created by lives lived largely online during a pandemic in a divided country. A time to rediscover IRL fun, breathe the same air as each other, build something together, and have real conversations without the anonymized wall of the internet to hide behind.

Now, communities of care feel imperative and more crucial than just having a good time (although we’re still gonna have a good time). We need each other. We depend on each other. We are responsible to each other. That’s what community means, and that’s the kind of community we intend to practice and facilitate at Lille Bønne. We expect mutual respect, good faith discussions, and an understanding that loving our neighbors means all our neighbors. 

Here, we will rage against the machine together and grow a garden instead. We’ll plant seeds whose fruit we’ll eat in a year and trees under whose shade we may never sit. We’ll tend to the work of community and connection with patience and care. We’ll ask questions and be curious about the answers. We will care for each other out loud and on purpose and always put people over profits. 

If that sounds nice to you, I hope you’ll join us.

xo,
Abby