Friends and business partners Fearless Cummings and Andile Mahlageni-Byndon have opened 2 Dads and a Bookstore in Bellevue, Neb., KETV reported.
Located at 1015 Galvin Road S., 2 Dads and a Bookstore has a strong emphasis on local, independent authors, with Mahlageni-Byndon noting that they "give 100% of the revenue that the authors make back to them. We just want to give them a place and a platform where they can show their work to the community."
The store also buys and sells used books and has an extensive online catalog. The space is open and inviting and customers are welcome to sit down, talk, and have a cup of coffee. They hope 2 Dads and a Bookstore becomes a community hub and, as Black fathers, they hope to show young Black boys in their community the joys of reading. Said Mahlageni-Byndon: "it's just a beautiful dynamic and we can tackle so many different issues in our community."
Mehlageni-Byndon and Cummings met while working together at a previous job. During a training session they discovered that they both loved to read. They quickly became good friends and "ever since then everything took off."
They decided to open a business of their own only about three months ago. "That took a lot of work. My guy had a lot of books, we found a place over in Bellevue and everything just kind of fell together," Cummings remarked.