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10 H A R T F O R D B U S I N E S S J O U R N A L | A M E R I C A A T 2 5 0 A younger version of myself would have assumed it would be easier to help Connecticut celebrate America 250. How often does a state capital in one of the original thirteen colonies get the chance to tell its side of the story of the last quarter millennium? Twenty years ago, I would have expected broad alignment and excitement around the moment—that this would be something people from all walks of life would naturally rally behind. I think it is a fair indication of where we find ourselves as Americans when I tell you that finding support and alignment towards this celebratory mission has been a greater challenge than I ever imagined. For the past two and a half years, our team at Breakfast Lunch & Dinner has been working on the America 250 edition of Hartford Bonanza, our capital city's free Independence Day tradition, on behalf of First Night Hartford, Inc., the nonprofit that independently produces both Bonanza and its namesake New Year's Eve community celebration. e obstacles are everywhere, but if I were to distill them into a single observation, it would be this: civic life today is more fragmented and more strained than most of us want to acknowledge. Even efforts rooted in shared history and shared place require more coordination and persistence than you might expect. Federal, state, and local priorities are not moving in the same direction. Institutions operate under different constraints than when we began this process. Resources for culture and humanities work flow through differing, often entrenched systems and structures. And AMERICA AT 250 • LETTERS FROM CONNECTICUT'S BUSINESS LEADERS even when goals are similar, the pathways to achieving them often are not. I don't think this situation is unique to America's 250th anniversary. But given what many of us imagined this moment might be, it makes the reality harder to ignore. While we may wish it were otherwise, this reality is okay by us. Creating momentum and overcoming inertia are things we pride ourselves on at Breakfast Lunch & Dinner. One of our guiding beliefs is that the only constant is change. We can spend our energy wishing things were different, or we can get comfortable with the fact that reality is always in motion. For 250 years, Americans have built, uprooted, challenged, improved, messed up, and reinvented the institutions around them. Our history has not been defined by perfection, but it has been defined by participation. Ordinary people, working in their neighborhoods and communities, continue to shape the trajectory of their cities, states, and nation. At BL&D, we rarely create something entirely new. Instead, we recycle, restore, and reinvent what already exists or used to exist so that, through changing realities, essential social fabric can endure. We work to strengthen the connective tissue that allows communities to function and, we hope, thrive. For us, that means creating events where people gather in shared space, supporting media and storytelling that help communities understand themselves and each other, building partnerships that make authentic collaboration possible, and investing in experiences that meaningfully bring people into contact with one another in the real world. We hope our work helps strengthen neighborhoods. Strong neighborhoods create strong cities, and strong cities create strong states. One of the clearest lessons of America 250 is that the health of civic life cannot be assumed. It must be maintained and tended to. We live in a moment when trust in institutions is uneven, local media has been stretched thin, and civic and cultural organizations are often asked to do more with less. Yet some things remain constant, including our desire for connection and our capacity to contribute. e Hartford Bonanza festival is only six years old. We find it a little odd that we had to create a new Independence Day tradition in a historic city like Hartford. But when we set out to imagine and build Bonanza, our goal was simple: create a summer tradition that gives people a reason to gather with their neighbors, strengthen civic pride, and celebrate the place they call home. e tradition has grown tremendously since the pandemic. is year, Bonanza will serve not only as Hartford's celebration, but as a gathering point for the entire state as Connecticut marks America's 250th anniversary. We look forward to welcoming Connecticut to its capital city for this moment and for lasting connections beyond this historic gathering. Civic life does not improve on its own. It strengthens when people participate. When we volunteer, contribute, organize, support, create, and show up. Not because it is easy, but because it matters. Two hundred and fifty years later, that responsibility still belongs to all of us. Jeff Devereux Partner Breakfast Lunch & Dinner Breakfast Lunch & Dinner