Background Story
who we are, how we got here, where we're going...
Welcome to Cazimi!
We're your co-hosts, hobbes and Fritz!
Hey y’all - hobbes and Fritz here - we're so glad you're here. We’re the co-hosts, organizers and permanent residents of Cazimi Collective. Currently, we are temporarily located in Sandbridge, Virginia on the traditional lands of the Chesapeake and Lumbee people. Our temporary location includes a 6 bedroom, 3 bathroom home with a hot tub, pool and some small yet mighty gardens. Our backyard has a dock along a canal that connects to the North Bay (great for kayaking) and our front yard is only a block and half walk to the Atlantic ocean via Sandbridge Beach. We are lucky to have an informal agreement with Fritz’s father who owns the property, to be able to host retreats here while we continue searching for additional hosting sites, and eventually Cazimi’s permanent home.
How did we get here?
We’ve been friends for nearly a decade… an iconic slow burn if we do say so ourselves. We started out running around in the same circles for a few years, and in 2020 we pumped up the gas on our connection by starting to write together once a week. Through these intimate and deep sharing sessions, we realized that our connection was more cosmic than we may have originally realized. We were perhaps dust from the same stars…
After writing together for awhile, Covid hit. We decided to use our quarantine time to start a podcast together, Queer Retrograde. QR started as a gay spoof on reality dating, the queer recaps of The Bachelor still live on if you dig deep enough into the archives. Eventually we refocused to cater to our audience by focusing on love, relationships, and interviews with LGBTQ+ community members about their experiences and projects. Throughout these conversations, we quickly realized that our desire to live in reciprocal relationship with the land amongst other queer folks was surely a shared dream.
Cazimi... In progress...
In 2023, we co-founded Cazimi Collective, an arts and farm retreat center in Virginia that centers the needs of exceptional, but strategically under resourced communities. Since then we’ve hosted retreats of various sizes and lengths, in diverse spaces and are now continuing to work with what we’ve got while actively looking for a permanent home.
While being only a block away from the Atlantic is quite astonishing for us both, we consider our beach location a temporary launch pad for what is to come. We are calling in venue partners who share our values and would like to support our retreats through discounted rates or in-kind space offerings. In our permanent home search, we’re looking for a more remote site that has room for us to grow. Specifically:
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20+ acres in Virginia or North Carolina, within a 3 hour drive to Richmond
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Established home on-site, ideally with at least 5 bedrooms or flex spaces
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On-site water access via pond, river, lake or pool in addition to a well
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Additional housing already on-site is a plus
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Farm or garden infrastructure on-site is a plus (barns, equipment, established beds, etc)
We are not in a current position to purchase a property, however we are open to creative ways that we can continue expanding our retreat offerings and acquiring our forever home. Whether that be through a partnership, angel investor, reparations offering, lease to own agreement or something else, we remain fluid like water. If you or someone you know has a property that could be a good site to host future retreats, or a potential permanent home for Cazimi, please email us at cazimicollective@gmail.com.
