Chicory Naturalist launched in the winter of 2021 as a tiny website with big ideas, expanding into events and outdoor education over the course of that year. In May of 2022, we propped open the door of our shop and community space at the Kingston Waterfront, joyfully welcoming in the spring breeze and (little by little) all of you.
From the beginning, our mission has been to reconnect broken chains of generational knowledge about the natural world. We're aided in this every day by you - our ever-widening, ever-changing mycelial network of naturalists and neighbors, birders and babies, guncles and gardeners, elders and educators, mycophiles and middle schoolers, and so many more.
We are proud of what we’ve created together in these past four years, and excited to see what we can do in the next four...with your support!
✺ To learn more about our mission and offerings... What Chicory Does
✺ To understand why your support is urgently needed... A Letter from Chris
Join us today!
Your donation of any amount is hugely appreciated. Everyone who gives will be invited to join a Signal chat to share with friends, for help with ID, arranging field trips and forays, and connecting through our shared love of nature.
As a token of gratitude, we're also offering some sweet member gifts. If you would like to receive yours, don't forget to fill out the form you will receive after donating! If you need us to ship your items (especially for the shirt/hat tiers), please consider adding $7-$10 to your donation to cover that cost. 💚 T-shirts will be locally screen printed in batches, so production may take up to a month.
What Chicory Does
Curation. We’re a nature-focused book and gift shop in the Hudson Valley. Our goal with our inventory is to be able to matchmake anyone who walks in the doors with a book or gift that speaks to their natural interests, curiosities and delights. We’re constantly filling in the gaps!
About half of our inventory is books, specializing in life-changing science writing, field guides, nature memoir, sci-fi/cli-fi, queer ecologies, indigenous perspectives, radical literature from diverse voices, empathy-building middle grade & YA, plus a large, lovingly selected collection of gorgeous & educational picture books exploring the natural world and human diversity.
The other half of our inventory runs the gamut from naturalist gear, art & journaling supplies, seeds and gardening goods, puzzles & board games, STEAM & outdoor toys, developmental toddler toys, baby gifts, plus a small selection of home goods and accessories from independent & local makers.
Sustainability. Acknowledging that we will never be able to buy our way out of ecological calamity, still we take responsibility for the choices we make. We focus on selling products made from renewable resources and/or recycled materials, buy post-consumer recycled paper goods, and go well out of our way to funnel as much of our shop waste to reuse/recycling streams as possible.
Monthly events. Our newsletter goes out monthly with fun, largely free community events–Chicory Book Club, puzzle swaps, game nights and neighborhood festivals to name a few. Others include…
Workshops & classes. These have included off-site, educational nature walks as well as in-store workshops like natural plant dyeing, visible felt mending, and fan-favorite sip n’ pins.
Book events. From book launches to combined readings/plant swaps, we love hosting mission-aligned literary events. Previous authors have included Sophie Strand (The Flowering Wand and The Madonna Secret), Alex Testere (Please Grow), and Feminist Bird Club founder Molly Adams (Birding for a Better World).
Kids programming. Our community area is designed to welcome kids of all ages, with toys to play with, coloring sheets, and books to read on comfy couches. We also host occasional story hours and crafternoons, and aspire to do more.
Offering support. We share our physical space and platform with mission-aligned local makers & businesses at every opportunity, as well as donating to myriad fundraisers and sponsoring local events each year.
Future plans. Looking forward, we hope to add a free community microscopy program, regular story hour for kids, and more neighborhood nature walks, to name a few goals. Ultimately, what takes shape will depend on what our neighbors want and need from us.
Dear Chicory Community,
I’m reaching out this month to present you with our first-ever membership drive, in hopes that I will be able to do something I haven’t done through the past four years of seeding, nurturing, and growing Chicory Naturalist: Take a real salary to provide for my family.
As most of you know, Jake (my spouse/best friend/co-parent/first-pass editor/absolute ride or die) fell 18 feet from a ladder last autumn, rupturing one of their vertebrae, fracturing their wrist, and incurring other injuries that have still not been fully diagnosed. While a combination of surgeries and physical therapy have helped them regain mobility (a blessing we don’t remotely take for granted), they have been living with near-constant, occasionally debilitating pain this entire time. So many of you have reached out with consideration and compassion to ask how they are doing, and as much as I desperately wish I could say “all better!” the truth is harder and more muddy. Most recently, diagnostic tests have suggested they may be referred for additional surgery to resolve ongoing nerve damage, an extremely disheartening prospect.
What you might not know is that Jake’s career as a skilled craftsperson and carpenter has supported our family of three humans and two cats since I gave birth six years ago. While my own work has taken off in ways I could have never imagined through these years - I have been incredibly fortunate to sell books, teach subjects I’m passionate about, and even take a nominal owner’s draw from Chicory as it has grown - the income I’ve been able to contribute while working far more than full time has not at any point been enough to cover our bills. To be clear, this was an anticipated outcome of an anticapitalist with two degrees in anthropology starting an (admittedly) oddball small business! As partners, Jake and I accepted from the outset the trade offs this path would likely bring: financial austerity in the first several years at a minimum, to be tempered with an abundance of connection and joy. In that way, things were going more-or-less according to plan until their accident.
While the community that supports Chicory Naturalist has continued to grow and flourish as more folks find out about us, 2024 was a hard financial year for most small businesses in our community, Chicory included. Looking forward to 2025, I’ve never felt less able to predict what might happen with our regional/ national/ global economy, or more certain about my own imperative. Since Jake’s fall six months ago, we’ve been living on a combination of disability, my token owner's draw, plus family & community support. It’s an unsustainable situation. Jake’s talents, work ethic, and hard physical labor supported our family for years and allowed me to grow Chicory to where it is today. Now, there is a clear necessity for me to reciprocate that gift. By launching this membership drive, I hope I can accomplish this top-line goal while continuing to keep Chicory Naturalist open as the warm and welcoming, intergenerational and edifying third space it has become.
In the immediate aftermath of my spouse’s fall, we put up a GoFundMe to cover emergency payroll that y’all gave to so generously, we exceeded our goal within a day. When I closed that fundraiser, several friends and family members pushed back–why not keep it going? At the time, I’ll admit I couldn’t fully allow myself to imagine how profoundly our lives had just changed. And without knowing, I didn’t want to hoard community resources, especially in this time of such immense need for mutual aid. Today, I’ve made an intentional choice to structure this fundraiser as a membership drive rather than medical crowdfunding for the following reason: I want to ensure that my continued dedication to Chicory Naturalist is rooted in a real, demonstrable desire for what it has to offer.
My most essential goal in opening a brick-and-mortar shop was to create a space of value: To invite together a diverse swath of community united by our shared love of the more-than-human world and a commitment to our collective flourishing. To reforge broken chains of generational knowledge about nature and awaken curiosity and awe for the life around us. To foster connection–to the outdoors and also to each other–in the wake of a pandemic that pushed us further into our own atomized, algorithmic worlds. This mission feels more vital and necessary to me today than it did four years ago, but this is not and never has been a solo venture. If you feel you have a stake in this work and in the physical presence of Chicory Naturalist on the Kingston Waterfront, I hope you will join today at whichever membership level you are able.
In gratitude,
Chris
