Ebony & Orchid's 'Bloom Brunch' Grows In Brooklyn

Ebony & Orchid is back!

(Not that it went anywhere, but the radio silence from ANTISOCIAL was loud, wasn't it?)

This past weekend, my E&O co-founder, Junny Ann Hibbert, and I hosted our first-ever Bloom Brunch, where about a dozen women came to talk about their dreams, ambitions, and challenges at my home in Bed-Stuy. It was our second E&O event of 2026, after hosting a different brunch in January. Why the long break with both it and updating ANTISOCIAL?

Well, lemme tell you. Your girl was going through it!

It's a long story, but the short version is I'm perimenopausal, and the estrogen drop caused my undiagnosed and untreated ADHD to go haywire and immobilize me for months. I couldn't write. I couldn't move forward in life. And I was generally miserable.

But thanks to modern medicine, I'm back!

I've risen from the dead of brain fog and inertia and have emerged with a pan full of overnight French toast, giant blueberry muffins, sea salt & chocolate chip cookies, a couple of quiche lorraines, and a dream of women in community with each other!

The backyard was beautiful on Sunday, thanks to Ursallie Smith of Rococo Design in Bed-Stuy, who provided the floral arrangements as a sponsor. But giving her a big assist was the weather, which cooperated by being warm, sunny, and gorgeous! (The ladies cooperated by being the same. Just love, light, and sisterhood.) But it was almost too sunny. For most of our Bloom Brunch, everyone was crowded in my tiny patio area, where there was shade, until the afternoon sun finally moved and we could use the full backyard.

During the brunch, women shared personal stories, networked, bonded, and worked through various personal and professional issues, with their peers offering advice and insights — all while being fabulously dressed.

The women were from all walks of life — entrepreneurs, nonprofits, fashion, media, sales, zines, lifestyle, public relations, philanthropy, and beauty, and many shared a common thread: they'd all had to pivot at some point in their lives. A pivot towards new careers and ventures, and changes both large and small, professional and personal.

And our coming together came from a place of desiring community and belonging in a world that told more than 600,000 Black women over the past two years they didn't matter.

But we do. Because we have found strength in our beauty and resilience. And we have found friends and community in each other.

Junny and I started talking about Ebony & Orchid last spring, after we began spending a lot of time together at my home, laughing, talking, and eating the many elaborate meals I like to make.

"If you know Danielle Belton, you know that means two things: good food and great conversation," Junny wrote. "She’s one of the reasons my waistline has expanded this year! But in the midst of all that joy, we also witnessed a season of deep challenge. As Danielle often says, 'the world can feel like a dumpster fire.'"

Seeing so many Black women impacted by job loss and career derailment affected us both. But the reality especially hit home for Junny.

"I talk a lot about community, about having a safe space to connect, to breathe, to decompress. And yet, even as an award-winning fashion designer and media executive, I spent my summer interviewing for jobs I was overqualified for," she wrote. "I had access, I had ideas, but I still couldn’t land a role. It was during those long conversations over dinner with a small circle of women, women like Danielle, that something beautiful started to bloom.

"Ebony & Orchid became more than an idea. It became a living, breathing platform, a space born out of partnership and purpose. We spoke life into this vision!"

Ebony & Orchid is still growing, still blooming, and we want you to be a part of it! Want to learn more about Ebony & Orchid? Follow us on Instagram! Want to come to one of our events? Apply here! And if you want to be featured at one of our gatherings or be a potential sponsor, shoot us an email!

And stay tuned to this space to learn more!